Tag Archives: Military

Russia to retaliate against U.S. in military observation flights row: agencies

Finnish President Sauli Niinisto (not in picture) meets Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Sergei Ryabkov at the President's Official Residence Mantyniemi, Helsinki, Finland September 12, 2017. Lehtikuva/Martti Kainulainen/via REUTERS

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia will retaliate against the United States in a row over a treaty that allows both states to conduct military observation flights over each other’s territory, Russia’s deputy foreign minister said, Russian news agencies reported on Wednesday.

In the latest sign of escalating tensions between the two countries, the United States has accused Russia of flouting the so-called Open Skies Treaty, an agreement designed to build confidence between the two countries’ militaries, and said it plans to take measures against Moscow.

The Wall Street Journal newspaper reported on Tuesday that would include restricting Russian military flights over American territory in response to what it said was Moscow preventing U.S. observation flights over its heavily militarized Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad.

Russian news agencies cited Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov on Wednesday as saying that Moscow was itself unhappy about Washington’s compliance with the same treaty and would take its own measures against the United States in response to any new U.S. restrictions.

“I have no doubt there will be a (Russian) response,” agencies cited Ryabkov as telling reporters.

“But before announcing something on this, we have to analyze the situation with our military and look at how we’ll respond to the Americans.”

Ryabkov was quoted as describing Washington’s approach to the disagreement as one-sided and as saying Russia would not yield to U.S. pressure for it to make concessions.

U.S. Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that Washington believed it would be best if the Open Skies Treaty with Russia continued, but that it should not be in place if Moscow was flouting it.

(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova/Andrew Osborn; Editing by Christian Lowe)

Brazil army deploys in Rio slum as drug-related violence worsens

Armed Forces take up position during a operation after violent clashes between drug gangs in Rocinha slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, September 22, 2017. REUTERS/Bruno Kelly

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Hundreds of Brazilian soldiers poured into Rio de Janeiro’s Rocinha slum on Friday in a bid to help the cash-strapped state government quell the drug-related violence that authorities blamed for at least four deaths and several injuries there this week.

The army deployed 950 troops in the sprawling favela, responding to a request from the Rio state government, Defense Minister Raul Jungmann told local television.

In the past week, 60 criminals are believed to have launched an effort to dominate the drug trade in the area, not far from some of the city’s most expensive real estate, and shootings were reported there on Friday morning, according to local media.

The violence in Rocinha is one more sign of the backsliding since the launch of a “pacification” program in 2008 to reduce violence by pushing out drug gangs and setting up permanent outposts in the city’s more than 1,000 favelas.

Police struggled to maintain security gains in favelas in the run-up to the 2016 Olympics in Rio and have continued to lose ground as a fiscal crisis in the city and state lead to cutbacks in spending on police and other essential services.

The military operation in Rocinha on Friday disrupted transportation and businesses in the area, with some schools closing or paring back operations.

“I was going to work and suddenly the police closed off the tunnel in Rocinha and started to patrol with guns. There was a panic at the mouth of the tunnel and I saw people running and heard gunfire,” one witness told Reuters, requesting anonymity.

“I’m still shaking now.”

The outbreak of violence is happening in the midst of the Rock in Rio music festival at the far south end of the city, which has drawn thousands of people with musical acts including Fergie and Aerosmith.

Broadcaster GloboNews on Friday showed relatively calm scenes of matte green military trucks filing down roads into the favela, including soldiers riding on trucks and motorcycles holding assault rifles.

There are up to 10,000 troops in Rio de Janeiro who could be mobilized if needed, the defense ministry said.

“We’re not going to back off in Rocinha,” the governor of Rio state Luiz Fernando Pezao told journalists.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Viga Gaier and Pedro Fonseca; Writing by Jake Spring, editing by Tom Brown)

U.S. army probes fake evacuation orders sent to U.S. military, families in South Korea

FILE PHOTO - A U.S. Army soldier sits inside their military vehicle as he takes part in Operation Pacific Reach joint logistic exercise in Pohang, South Korea, April 11, 2017. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

By Heekyong Yang

SEOUL (Reuters) – The U.S. military said on Saturday it has opened an investigation into fake mobile phone alerts and social media messages advising U.S. military personnel and their families to evacuate the Korean Peninsula.

The phony messages, which were spread on Thursday, came at a sensitive time, with tensions high after North Korea conducted its sixth and largest nuclear test on Sept. 3. The test and a series of missile launches have triggered a war of words between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un.

U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) was not yet aware of how many people received the hoax messages or who was behind them, a spokesman for the USFK told Reuters.

The USFK posted a statement on its official Facebook page on Thursday making clear that the U.S. military did not issue any evacuation-related alerts.

It has also instructed all U.S. Department of Defense personnel and their family to confirm any evacuation-related communications before acting.

The USFK conducts regular biannual noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO) exercises in the spring and fall to rehearse for possible evacuation. The second NEO exercise of the year is scheduled to take place in October.

(Reporting by Heekyong Yang; Editing by Hyunjoo Jin and Lincoln Feast)

North Korea says seeking military ‘equilibrium’ with U.S.

North Korea says seeking military 'equilibrium' with U.S.

By Christine Kim and Michelle Nichols

SEOUL/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – North Korea said on Saturday it aims to reach an “equilibrium” of military force with the United States, which earlier signaled its patience for diplomacy is wearing thin after Pyongyang fired a missile over Japan for the second time in under a month.

“Our final goal is to establish the equilibrium of real force with the U.S. and make the U.S. rulers dare not talk about military option,” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was quoted as saying by the state news agency, KCNA.

Kim was shown beaming as he watched the missile fly from a moving launcher in photos released by the agency, surrounded by several officials.

“The combat efficiency and reliability of Hwasong-12 were thoroughly verified,” said Kim as quoted by KCNA. Kim added the North’s goal of completing its nuclear force had “nearly reached the terminal”.

North Korea has launched dozens of missiles under Kim’s leadership as it accelerates a weapons program designed to give it the ability to target the United States with a powerful, nuclear-tipped missile.

After the latest missile launch on Friday, White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said the United States was fast running out of patience with North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs.

“We’ve been kicking the can down the road, and we’re out of road,” McMaster told reporters, referring to Pyongyang’s repeated missile tests in defiance of international pressure.

“For those … who have been commenting on a lack of a military option, there is a military option,” he said, adding that it would not be the Trump administration’s preferred choice.

Also on Friday, the U.N. Security Council condemned the “highly provocative” missile launch by North Korea.

It had already stepped up sanctions against North Korea in response to a nuclear bomb test on Sept. 3, imposing a ban on North Korea’s textile exports and capping its imports of crude oil.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, echoed McMaster’s strong rhetoric, even as she said Washington’s preferred resolution to the crisis is through diplomacy and sanctions.

“What we are seeing is, they are continuing to be provocative, they are continuing to be reckless and at that point there’s not a whole lot the Security Council is going to be able to do from here, when you’ve cut 90 percent of the trade and 30 percent of the oil,” Haley said.

U.S. President Donald Trump said that he is “more confident than ever that our options in addressing this threat are both effective and overwhelming.” He said at Joint Base Andrews near Washington that North Korea “has once again shown its utter contempt for its neighbors and for the entire world community.”

MISSILE

North Korea’s latest test missile flew over Hokkaido in northern Japan on Friday and landed in the Pacific about 2,000 km (1,240 miles) to the east, the Japanese government said.

It traveled about 3,700 km (2,300 miles) in total, according to South Korea’s military, far enough to reach the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam, which the North has threatened before.

“The range of this test was significant since North Korea demonstrated that it could reach Guam with this missile,” the Union of Concerned Scientists advocacy group said in a statement. However, the accuracy of the missile, still at an early stage of development, was low, it said.

On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Tillerson called on China, Pyongyang’s only ally, and Russia to apply more pressure on North Korea by “taking direct actions of their own.”

Beijing has pushed back, urging Washington to do more to rein in North Korea.

“Honestly, I think the United States should be doing .. much more than now, so that there’s real effective international cooperation on this issue,” China’s ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai, said on Friday.

“They should refrain from issuing more threats. They should do more to find effective ways to resume dialogue and negotiation,” he said, while adding that China would never accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons state.

North Korea staged its sixth and most powerful nuclear bomb test earlier this month and in July tested long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching at least parts of the U.S. mainland.

Last month, North Korea fired an intermediate range missile that also flew over Hokkaido into the ocean.

Warning announcements about the latest missile blared in parts of northern Japan, while many residents received alerts on their mobile phones or saw warnings on TV telling them to seek refuge.

The U.S. military said it had detected a single intermediate range ballistic missile but it did not pose a threat to North America or Guam.

Global equities investors largely shrugged off the latest missile test by North Korea as shares on Wall Street set new highs on Friday.

DIFFERENCES OVER DIRECT TALKS

Trump has promised not to allow North Korea to threaten the United States with a nuclear-tipped missile.

Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, said the United States needed to begin talks with North Korea, something that Washington has so far ruled out.

“We called on our U.S. partners and others to implement political and diplomatic solutions that are provided for in the resolution,” Nebenzia told reporters after the Security Council meeting. “Without implementing this, we also will consider it as a non-compliance with the resolution.”

Asked about the prospect for direct talks, a White House spokesman said, “As the president and his national security team have repeatedly said, now is not the time to talk to North Korea.”

South Korean President Moon Jae-in also said dialogue with the North was impossible at this point. He ordered officials to analyze and prepare for possible new North Korean threats, including electromagnetic pulse and biochemical attacks.

The United States and South Korea are technically still at war with North Korea because the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a truce and not a peace treaty. The North accuses the United States, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, of planning to invade and regularly threatens to destroy it and its Asian allies.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Michelle Nichols; Additional reporting by Hideyuki Sano, William Mallard, Tim Kelly and Chehui Peh in Tokyo, Jack Kim and Christine Kim in Seoul, Mohammad Zargham, Susan Heavey, Makini Brice and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Tom Miles in Geneva; Masha Tsvetkova and Polina Devitt in Moscow; Christian Shepherd in Beijing; Writing by Frances Kerry; Editing by Alistair Bell and Cynthia Osterman)

With China in mind, Japan, India agree to deepen defense

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (L) and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi raise hands after the groundbreaking ceremony for a high-speed rail project in Ahmedabad, India, September 14, 2017. REUTERS/Amit Dave

By Amit Dave and Sanjeev Miglani

GANDHINAGAR, India (Reuters) – The leaders of India and Japan agreed on Thursday to deepen defense ties and push for more cooperation with Australia and the United States, as they seek to counter growing Chinese influence across Asia.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe arrived this week in his counterpart Narendra Modi’s home state, skipping the tradition of visiting the capital of New Delhi, for the tenth meeting between two leaders since Modi came to power in 2014.

Relations have deepened between Asia’s second and third largest economies as Abe and Modi, who enjoy a close personal relationship, increasingly see eye-to-eye to balance China as the dominant Asian power.

“Almost everything that takes place during the visit, including economic deals, will in part be done with China in mind,” Eurasia analysts said in a note.

Abe’s visit comes days after New Delhi and Beijing agreed to end the longest and most serious military confrontation along their shared and contested border in decades, a dispute that had raised worries of a broader conflict between the Asian giants.

In a lengthy joint statement, India and Japan said deepening security links was paramount. This included collaboration on research into unmanned ground vehicles and robotics and the possibility of joint field exercises between their armies.

There was also “renewed momentum” for cooperation with the United States and Australia. Earlier this year, India rejected an Australian request to be included in four-country naval drills for fear of angering Beijing.

“Relations between India and Japan are not only a bilateral relationship but have developed into a strategic global partnership,” Abe told reporters in Gandhinagar, the capital of western Gujarat state.

“We (India and Japan) will strengthen our collaboration with those countries with whom we share universal values.”

Abe flew to Gujarat to lay the foundation stone of a $17 billion bullet train project, India’s first, that was made possible by a huge Japanese loan.

Tokyo wants to win other high-speed rail lines India plans to build, to edge out Chinese ambitions to do the same and provide a boost for its high-end manufacturers.

The visit was light on specific announcements, but India said it welcomed proposals for increased Japanese investment into infrastructure projects in its remote northeast, a region New Delhi sees as its gateway to Southeast Asia.

China claims part of India’s northeast as its own territory.

Japanese investment into the northeast “would give legs to our Act East policy,” Indian Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar told reporters.

Modi and Abe also said they would push for more progress on the development of industrial corridors for the growth of Asia and Africa.

Analysts say the planned $40 billion Asia-Africa Growth Corridor takes direct aim at China’s Belt and Road project, envisaged as a modern-day “Silk Road” connecting China by land and sea across Asia and beyond to the Middle East, Europe and Africa.

(Writing by Tommy Wilkes; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Afghanistan will never again be militant sanctuary: U.S. ambassador

U.S. soldiers take part in a memorial ceremony to commemorate the 16th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, in Kabul, Afghanistan September 11, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail

By Josh Smith

KABUL (Reuters) – The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan said on Monday Washington would never allow militants to use the country as a sanctuary, as American and allied troops in Kabul commemorated the Sept. 11 attacks.

U.S. President Donald Trump in August committed nearly 4,000 additional troops to Afghanistan as part of an open-ended campaign against Taliban insurgents who have made advances in recent years.

A U.S. led intervention sparked by the Sept. 11 attacks toppled the Taliban government in 2001. Since then more than 2,400 American troops and more than 1,000 international allies have died in Afghanistan.

“Today we remember how this conflict began but let us also remember how this must end, with Afghanistan never again serving as an ungoverned space, sanctuary or base for those who are bent on attacking us and our allies,” ambassador Hugo Llorens told a crowd of soldiers at the NATO coalition’s headquarters in Kabul.

The United states would also “completely annihilate” Islamic State militants in the region, Llorens said.

The Taliban on Monday claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing that wounded several NATO troops and Afghan civilians in a province north Kabul.

(Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

U.S.-backed forces, Syrian army advance separately on Islamic State in Deir al-Zor

U.S.-backed forces, Syrian army advance separately on Islamic State in Deir al-Zor

By John Davison

BEIRUT (Reuters) – U.S.-backed militias and the Syrian army advanced in separate offensives against Islamic State in eastern Syria on Saturday, piling pressure on shrinking territory the group still holds in oil-rich areas near the Iraqi border.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-backed alliance of mostly Arab and Kurdish fighters, launched a new operation against the jihadists in the north of Deir al-Zor province that aims to capture areas north and east of the Euphrates river.

Syrian government forces and their allies, backed by Russia and Iran, meanwhile seized an oilfield from militants on the other side of the Euphrates and recaptured part of a road linking Deir al-Zor to areas held by IS further downstream.

The advances against Islamic State in territory it has held for years as part of its self-declared caliphate will likely bring U.S.-backed forces and the Syrian government side into closer proximity.

A U.S. warplane shot down a Syrian army jet near Raqqa in June and the SDF accused the Syrian government of bombing its positions, showing the risk of escalation between warring sides in a crowded battlefield.

The Syrian conflict, which started as a popular uprising against President Bashar al-Assad in 2011, has drawn the military involvement of most world powers. Peace talks have repeatedly failed to bring an end to the war.

The SDF operation in Deir al-Zor province aims to capture areas in its northern and eastern countryside and advance toward the Euphrates, the Deir al-Zor Military Council, which is fighting as part of the SDF, said in a statement.

“The first step is to free the eastern bank of the Euphrates and the areas Islamic State still holds,” Ahmed Abu Kholeh, head of the military council, told Reuters after the announcement.

“We’re not specifying a timeframe but we hope it will be a quick operation,” he said.

Abu Kholeh would not say whether there were plans to advance on Deir al-Zor city itself. “We don’t know how the battles will go after this,” he said.

He said SDF fighters did not expect clashes with Syrian government forces as they advance, but if fired upon “we will respond”.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported SDF forces had advanced against IS in Deir al-Zor’s northwestern countryside, seizing several hilltops and a village.

SYRIAN ARMY TAKES OILFIELD

Syrian government forces and their allies meanwhile recaptured from militants the Teym oilfield southwest of Deir al-Zor city, on the other side of the Euphrates, state TV reported.

They also seized part of a main highway running from Deir al-Zor downstream to the city of al-Mayadeen, to which many Islamic State militants have retreated, the British-based Observatory said.

That advance would help block potential IS reinforcements from al-Mayadeen, it said.

The Syrian army this week advanced quickly, backed by Russian air strikes, to reach a government-held enclave of Deir al-Zor that was besieged for years by Islamic State. Government forces are still fighting to reach a nearby air base, which the militants still surround.

Islamic State in Syria still holds much of Deir al-Zor province and half the city, as well as a pocket of territory further west near Homs and Hama.

But the group has lost most of its self-declared caliphate which from 2014 stretched across swathes of Syria and Iraq, including oil-rich Deir al-Zor.

The SDF is still battling to eject the jihadists from the remaining areas they hold in Raqqa, once their Syria stronghold.

Talks between Russia, Iran and opposition backer Turkey in Astana are to take place next week, possibly followed by a separate track at the United Nations in Geneva in October or November.

Assad’s government has participated in previous rounds from a position of power as Damascus has clawed back much territory, including the main urban centers in the west of the country and increasingly eastern desert held by IS.

(Reporting by John Davison in Beirut and Rodi Said in Syria; Editing by Dale Hudson)

Sweeping change in China’s military points to more firepower for Xi

A Chinese paramilitary policeman climbs an obstacle during training in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China, August 11, 2017. Picture taken August 11, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer

By Philip Wen and Benjamin Kang Lim

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s military is preparing a sweeping leadership reshuffle, dropping top generals, including two that sources say are under investigation for corruption.

The changes would make room for President Xi Jinping to install trusted allies in key positions at a key party congress that begins on Oct 18.

A list of 303 military delegates to the Communist Party Congress, published by the army’s official newspaper on Wednesday, excluded Fang Fenghui and Zhang Yang, both members of the Central Military Commission. The commission is China’s top military decision-making body.

Reuters reported this week that the 66-year-old Fang, who accompanied Xi to his first meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in April, is being questioned on suspicion of corruption.

Three sources familiar with the matter said Zhang, the director of the military’s Political Work Department, is also the subject of a probe. China’s Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

The personnel changes herald a clean sweep of the top-ranking generals heading up the department. All three of Zhang’s deputies – Jia Tingan, Du Hengyan and Wu Changde – were also missing from the list of congress delegates.

“This is a very clear message: they’re out,” said Cheng Li, an expert on Chinese elite politics at the Brookings Institution. “Their political careers have come to an end.”

On Friday, news reports carried by the People’s Liberation Army Daily and the official news agency Xinhua abruptly referred to the navy’s political commissar, Miao Hua, as the Political Work Department director, despite no official announcement of Zhang being replaced in his role.

The department is in charge of imbuing political thought and makes military personnel decisions in a similar vein to the Communist Party’s Organisation Department.

The Political Work Department used to be headed by Xu Caihou, who along with a fellow former vice-chairman of the military commission, Guo Boxiong, was accused of taking bribes in exchange for promotions. Guo was jailed for life last year, while Xu died of cancer in 2015 before he could face trial.

Also among the key omissions from the list published Wednesday were Du Jincai, who was replaced as the military’s anti-corruption chief in March, and Cai Yingting, who left his post as head of the PLA Academy of Military Science in January.

Taking into account officials who are likely to retire, as many as seven of the 11 spots on the military commission may be vacated, strengthening talk in Chinese political circles that the body may be streamlined.

Xi, who is commander-in-chief of China’s armed forces, currently chairs the commission, which also comprises two vice-chairmen and eight committee members.

Two sources familiar with the matter said the commission may be cut down to Xi and four vice-chairmen, doing away with committee members and streamlining reporting lines.

Li, the Brookings expert, said that among those likely to be central to the army’s refreshed leadership were Li Zuocheng, who took over from Fang as chief of the Joint Staff Department last month, Miao and the three commanders of the army’s ground, air and naval forces: Han Weiguo, Ding Laihang and Shen Jinlong.

The fact that all five were newly-appointed this year and none were members of the Communist Party’s 200-odd strong Central Committee, Li said, reflected the extent to which Xi was rejuvenating the leadership as part of his years-long drive to modernize the military and make it more ready for combat.

“This is really a major step from Xi Jinping to consolidate his authority to promote the young, those who have some professional experience,” but are “not corrupted, and certainly not belonging to the factions of Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou,” he said.

(Reporting by Philip Wen and Benjamin Kang Lim; Editing by Philip McClellan)

U.S. to send 3,500 additional troops to Afghanistan

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Marines walk inside their base after they are back from training with Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers in Helmand province, Afghanistan July 6, 2017. REUTERS/ Omar Sobhani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States will send about 3,500 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, U.S. officials said on Wednesday, a figure broadly in line with expectations as the United States boosts support for the Afghan military.

The disclosure by the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, comes as Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine General Joseph Dunford hold closed door briefings with members of Congress about President Donald Trump’s regional strategy.

The Pentagon said it would not comment on additional troop numbers until Mattis makes an announcement.

If confirmed, it would bring the total number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to about 14,500.

After a months-long review of his Afghanistan policy, Trump committed the United States last week to an open-ended conflict in the country and promised a stepped-up campaign against Taliban insurgents.

Last week Mattis said he had signed orders to send additional troops to Afghanistan but did not specify the size of the force, saying he first needed to brief Congress.

U.S. officials have for months told Reuters that Trump had given Mattis the authority to send about 4,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.

The U.S. presence in Afghanistan peaked at more than 100,000 troops in 2011, when Washington was under domestic political pressure to draw down the costly operation.

Some U.S. officials have told Reuters they questioned the benefit of sending more troops to Afghanistan because any politically palatable number would not be enough to turn the tide, much less create stability and security.

To date, more than 2,300 Americans have been killed and over 17,000 wounded in Afghanistan.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart; Editing by Bill Trott)

Germany disputes size of Russian wargames, predicts 100,000 troops

FILE PHOTO: German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen speaks as she visits soldiers at the Bavarian Saaleck barracks, a site of a multi-national U.N. training ground, in Hammelburg, Germany, July 24, 2017. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach

By Robin Emmott

TALLINN (Reuters) – Germany said on Thursday that Russia was planning to send over 100,000 troops to war games on NATO’s eastern flank this month, disputing Moscow’s version that only 13,000 Russian and Belarussian servicemen would participate.

The Sept. 14-20 exercises known as Zapad, or “West” in Belarus, the Baltic Sea, western Russia and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, are stirring unease in NATO despite Moscow’s assurances troops would rehearse a purely defensive scenario.

“It is undisputed that we are seeing a demonstration of capabilities and power of the Russians,” German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen told reporters at an EU defense ministers’ meeting in Tallinn.

“Anyone who doubts that only has to look at the high numbers of participating forces in the Zapad exercise: more than one hundred thousand,” she said in a joint news conference with her French counterpart Florence Parly.

(For a graphic on Russia’s Zapad war games click http://tmsnrt.rs/2xQtYwH)

While Baltic nations have voiced concerns about a bigger-than-reported exercise and while NATO’s secretary-general expects more than 13,000 troops, Von der Leyen’s remarks are the first time a top Western politician has called out Russia publicly on what NATO sees as the true size of the war games.

Such numbers would be legal under international treaties on war games, but would require inviting international observers.

With less than 13,000 troops, international observation of the drills is not mandatory, Russia says.

“DEMONSTRATION OF FORCE”?

An exercises on that scale is one of NATO’s most pressing concerns. France, for one, believes the war games are no simple military drill, even though Russian Deputy Defence Minister Alexander Fomin told Western military attaches in Moscow in August the West had nothing to fear.

Russia accuses NATO of building up forces on its frontiers in a manner reminiscent of the Cold War. But NATO says it is protecting the interests of member states bordering Russia who are troubled by Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea and links to pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine.

Previous large-scale exercises in 2013 employed special forces training, longer-range missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles that were later used in the Crimea annexation and in actions in eastern Ukraine and Syria, NATO diplomats said.

“Russia has a global strategy of a visible, deliberate demonstration of force,” Parly said before heading to meet French troops in Estonia as part of NATO’s deployment of deterrent forces in the Baltics and Poland.

“They have a strategy of intimidation,” Parly said, warning that any attack on a Baltic country or Poland by Russia would be considered an attack on all of the U.S.-led NATO alliance.

(Reporting by Robin Emmott; editing by Ralph Boulton)