The attention of the whole world is focused on Belarus, the correspondent of the “Picture of the World” program, which airs on the RTR-Belarus TV channel, said in his story. However, what is so interesting about the Russian-Belarusian maneuvers taking place on the territory of the two countries from September 14 to 20 is impossible to understand from the texts and news of the state media of the Republic of Belarus. DW talks about the peculiarities of covering the exercises in the country's media.
Official media: rebroadcast of the opinion of the Ministry of Defense
On state television channels, not once since the start of the exercises have stories about them been either first or even second in the main evening news. On September 15, ONT and Belarus 1 showed exactly the same stories. And the liner to them echoed the title of the article in the country's most circulated newspaper, "Soviet Belarus" - "The order has been given." “The same talking heads report on minor episodes of the exercises, there is no information about the scenario and what is essential,” Minsk military expert Alexander Alesin shares his impression.
The reports shown in the final Sunday programs of the Belarus 1 and ONT state television channels differed little from what was said from the beginning of Zapad-2017. The same applies to “Soviet Belarus”, the founder of which is the presidential administration. All of them only relayed information disseminated by the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Belarus.
Lukashenko's silence
It is noteworthy that not once during the first four days of the maneuvers did President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko say a word about them. Thus, according to Alesin, Minsk probably wants to show that West 2017 is not such an important event for the country. This is in marked contrast to what was said on this matter before the start of the exercises. Then Lukashenko, let us remind you, gave orders to invite everyone who wanted to observe the maneuvers, saying that we are not hiding anything.
In the words of Ukrainian political scientist Gennady Maksak, who was in Minsk during the first days of the exercises, the Belarusian media are telling what is possible, given the agreements between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus: “We understand that not everything is under the control of the Belarusian leadership, not all information is in their hands, and they will calm down It’s possible when the last Russian soldier waves his hand as he leaves Belarus.”
Minsk lost the information battle around Zapad-2017, believes political analyst Alexander Klaskovsky. According to him, the state media reports look lame and unconvincing, and the Belarusian authorities were unable to promptly respond to false information and speculation. The head of the Belarus Security Blog project, Andrei Porotnikov, shares the same opinion. The presentation of information about the exercises to the media, he says, showed that the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Belarus does not know how to work either with journalists or with civil society; the military demonstrated a complete unwillingness to answer questions.
Non-state media:" West" harmedimage of Belarus
Non-state media covered the exercises differently. Some are circulating alarmist texts, saying that what is happening is the beginning of the occupation of Belarus according to the Ukrainian scenario. Most often, in publications about Russian-Belarusian maneuvers in the non-state press, there is a statement that they harm the peacekeeping image of Belarus and interfere with the establishment of relations between Minsk and the West.
The variety of views of non-government experts and the choice of topics dedicated to the exercises, for example, on the portal tut.by and in the online newspaper naviny.by, make their materials quite informative and meaningful. The online newspaper "Salidarnasts" writes about how villagers live near the landfills.
Context
The online opinion magazine kyky.org published a letter from a reservist sent to the editor, “Smooth the slope and not lose mines. How I built Zapad-2017.” And provided it with an explanation: “The author of this military tragicomedy asked to clarify that the exercises are a planned event, which is purely defensive in nature and does not pose any threat. However, it also makes sense."
Cognitive dissonance of Belarusian state media
Rarely does any material in the Belarusian state media about “Zapad-2017” go without information about the large number of NATO exercises in neighboring countries and about the build-up of the alliance’s military contingent in them. In some cases, separate stories are devoted to this topic. They are consonant with President Lukashenko’s statement from May 2013 that there is unrest on the borders of Belarus: “Someone’s hands are very itchy, they walk and chatter their teeth along the border, looking at our country with hatred.”
Meanwhile, after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and until recently, the tone of statements addressed to NATO was somewhat different. The head of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry, Vladimir Makei, has repeatedly emphasized that Minsk does not consider NATO as a threat, and the same was repeated by the state media. Therefore, now, according to Alexander Klaskovsky, they are in a state of cognitive dissonance, because are forced to simultaneously state the position of the Ministry of Defense, remembering the previous softer line towards NATO. But it is impossible to squeeze both messages into the plots at the same time, explains Klaskovsky.
In turn, Alexander Alesin seems to be no coincidence that the long silence of the official Belarusian media after the appearance of information about the transfer of the Russian tank army to Belarus, as well as discrepancies in the words of the press secretaries of the presidents of Russia and Belarus Dmitry Peskov and Natalya Eismont. Peskov noted that Alexander Lukashenko has changed his plans and will not come to observe the exercises in Russia. And Eismont replied that they did not receive an official invitation in Minsk, but Putin was invited to Belarus.
The joint military exercises between Russia and Belarus “Zapad-2017” have ended. The purpose of the exercise is to test the readiness of our countries to ensure the security of the Union State. Our Western neighbors are talking about a deliberate, deliberate demonstration of Russian military power. Moreover, the defense ministers of Poland and Lithuania stated that Russia wants to occupy the so-called Suwalki corridor, separating Belarus from the Kaliningrad region. There are about 70 kilometers.
By the way, these joint Russian-Belarusian exercises are far from the first. They have been held regularly, once every two years, since 2008. There is nothing unusual in these teachings.
Every time the Russian army conducts exercises, the West is hysterical. They accuse us of aggressive intentions. Every time Russian planes approach the borders of NATO countries - just approach, without breaking the rules - there is a noise.
But planes from NATO countries sometimes approach Russian borders several times a week. And NATO countries conduct exercises regularly. This is common. The military is doing its job. There can be no army without exercises. We had almost no exercises in the 90s. There wasn’t even enough fuel for tanks, kerosene for planes, and pilots forgot how to fly. What is this - an army? Such an army - what it is, what it is not. She will not protect the country. And now there is an army. She is combat-ready and effective. And we see this in Syria.
As for the West, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when it seemed that the Cold War was over forever and had become history, 13 new countries were already admitted to NATO. We now border on NATO. During the Cold War, there were almost two thousand kilometers from Moscow to the NATO countries. And now - 600, to the Latvian border. And this is not a drill. Not practicing defensive actions, as is now the case in Belarus. This is an offensive, aggressive strategy of the West towards Russia. That's why we need military exercises.
This weekday morning turned out to be turbulent for the military units of the Union State. According to the exercise scenario, the advanced reconnaissance group reports: extremist terrorist groups are trying to penetrate into the territory of Belarus and Russia from the Kaliningrad region. Airborne and air defense units of the armies of both states are on alert.
As the exercise progresses, the task becomes more difficult. It is assumed that the aggressor has channels for the supply of weapons, equipment, and ammunition. Troops are landing behind enemy lines. Motorized rifle units are also involved.
“Combined arms combat today is very fleeting, where all units and all types of weapons are used,” explains the commander of the 1st Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment, Evgeniy Kondratenko.
The Supreme Commander-in-Chief visited the training ground in the Leningrad region on Monday. Vladimir Putin headed straight from the helicopter to the main command post. From there, the President watched as heavy T-90 and T-72B3 tanks attacked the retreating enemy from two flanks. And this is just one episode.
The total defense front is almost 600 kilometers. "West 2017". These are the territories of six military training grounds in Belarus and three Russian ones. 13 thousand military personnel, 700 units of military equipment and 10 ships of the Baltic Fleet.
After fire support from the sea, the imaginary enemy is surrounded. The fleet blocked supply channels and cut off escape routes.
Exclusively defensive in nature - this is how the exercises were repeatedly characterized in Moscow and Minsk. But at first, the Western reaction was usually hysterical - from fears that the maneuvers would create a threat to countries bordering Belarus to completely delusional assumptions: the capture of Belarus itself and a nuclear strike on Poland. However, pretty soon the tone began to change.
“These exercises are real training for different parts of the Russian Armed Forces. But they were also planned as a performance, because it was obvious that what was happening here would be shown around the world. This is a special signal from the United States and NATO: an attack on Russia would be a mistake,” notes CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer.
“Zapad-2017” is part of absolutely normal Russian military activity. It happened in 1999, 2013, and now it’s happening this year. Three countries have been invited, including Poland - four. They are all aware, there is no direct threat to NATO, I personally don’t see it either,” said Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe James Everard.
Many journalists, about a hundred observers - in terms of openness and transparency, these exercises went beyond the limits prescribed in the Vienna Convention.
“Out of 50 countries - 95 people,” they reported to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.
“They are interested,” noted Vladimir Putin.
The exercise scenario was agreed upon in advance and carried out without surprises. After the military attaches saw everything with their own eyes, it became impossible to come up with horror stories.
“We were given the opportunity to see the program. Just because it's a voluntary invitation doesn't mean we had to see absolutely everything. But we are satisfied with what we saw,” says Kiis Kaupo, a representative of the Estonian Armed Forces.
“We were impressed by the training of the Belarusian and Russian military and excellent firepower on the ground and in the air. This was an excellent opportunity for NATO observers to verify the openness and transparency of the Zapad 2017 exercise,” says NATO observer and fellow at the Center for the Prevention of the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and Arms Control Thomas Westerman.
“We had the opportunity to get objective information, not just what is being exaggerated, not just rumors,” notes OSCE representative Robin Mossinkoff.
And now in the British influential online publication The Independent there is an article entitled “Russia has been made a target of NATO fake news”:
“All Russian troops sent to neighboring Belarus go home after the exercises. After all the Western accusations that Russia is waging an information war through “fake news,” the question is, who is actually spreading “fake news”? Are Western opinion-makers stuck in a rut of Cold War stereotypes?
And the American Washington Post quite rightly notes: “West 2017” has become a kind of exhibition of the achievements of the Russian defense industry:
“The exercises are an opportunity for Russia to show the new power of its armed forces, which have undergone ten years of modernization. The military was eager to demonstrate a successful exercise despite adverse weather conditions.”
Here, for example, is the MSTA-S artillery complex, known since Soviet times. But only inside is it essentially a completely new car. Automation in everything - guidance, shooting.
“The barrel points itself at the target, you don’t need to twist or lift anything. We aim, shoot, then a couple of minutes and another target. The accuracy is up to five meters, very good,” says soldier Nikolai Perepelkin.
BMPT-72 tank support vehicle. The name "Terminator 2" is clear to any average person. It differs from the previous version in the crew composition - three people instead of five, and in increased firepower. Four rocket launchers. Penetrates armor and is dangerous for infantry with grenade launchers and anti-tank systems. Terminators should enter service with the Russian army this year. For them, the battle test was successful.
“New fire control systems have been tested in action. Overall, I'm satisfied with the results. The assessment by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and the Minister of Defense was high,” said Aleksey Kartapolov, commander of the Western Military District.
They also checked how the command and control bodies of military formations of Russia and Belarus interact. We practiced the actions of signalmen and resolved issues of joint logistics support - what is called logistics in the West. Leaving the Luga training ground, Vladimir Putin thanked the Russian military leaders for organizing the maneuvers. For the West, gripped by the phobia of World War III, this is another sign: Russia is ready to greet all foreign partners with such a strong handshake.
Well, that’s all: hordes of “armed terrorists” who tried to break into the territory of Russia and Belarus were defeated during the Zapad 2017 exercises. On September 20, at the training ground, where the smell of burnt gunpowder and diesel fuel still lingered, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko announced the end of the maneuvers. The old man said with special emphasis (looking at the foreign attaches):
Vladimir Putin arrived at the Zapad 2017 strategic exercises. The President of Russia arrived at the training ground to observe military exercises from Russia and Belarus
“Our military cooperation with Russia is not directed against third countries and serves solely to protect our national interests.” The same words were heard a hundred times from the lips of Vladimir Putin, the ministers of defense of Russia and Belarus. But where is it? Since last year, many politicians and generals of NATO countries (and Kyiv, howling at them) have been intimidating Europe and the world with the aggressive treachery of Moscow. And they made up horror myths.
What are they talking about?
Myth No. 1: “During the exercises, Russia will introduce a countless amount of military equipment into Belarus in order to leave it there.”
Such statements were made by the Chief of the General Staff of Ukraine Viktor Muzhenko and the President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaite. What do we see? As soon as the exercises were called off, Russian tanks and planes unanimously returned to their previous locations. You can’t hide such a quantity of military equipment like galoshes in a haystack. Moreover, there are more NATO spy eyes in Belarus than bedbugs in an old sofa. And the US space intelligence does not take its electronic eyes off the exercise area.
Myth No. 2. “Russia intends to use nuclear weapons during the Zapad-2017 military exercises"».
No, no, this is not a schizophrenic passage from a client of a mental hospital, but an official statement by the Minister of Defense of Poland, Antoni Macierewicz. The maneuvers have already ended, but no one has seen nuclear mushrooms over the test sites of Belarus and Russia. Macierewicz loudly splashed into a puddle of his own nonsense.
Myth No. 3. “Russia is using exercises to take over Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.”
Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak spoke in the same spirit: “The Russian group, under the guise of maneuvers, intends to cross the border and seize the territory of Ukraine.”
The exercises are over, but for some reason Russian tanks and paratroopers are still not visible on the streets of Riga, Vilnius, Tallinn or Kyiv and Kharkov.
Myth No. 4. “Russia, under the guise of exercises, will occupy Belarus and change the government there.”
This alarming speech came out of the mouth of the “hero of the breakthrough of the Ukrainian border,” ex-President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili. The first echelon with Russian troops and equipment headed home on Wednesday evening. And the sovereign Belarusian government “occupied by Moscow” cordially escorted the allied soldiers to their homeland.
Myth No. 5. The commander of US forces in Europe, General Ben Hodges, started a rumor that Russia would send more troops into Belarus than indicated in the exercise plan (and newspapers even wrote that “the Russian Ministry of Defense has ordered more than 4 thousand cars for transporting personnel in Belarus”).
Belarusian railway workers laugh: if so many trains crawled into our republic, the movement would be completely paralyzed!
According to the plan of the exercises, 12.7 thousand soldiers took part in them. And Ukrainian, Finnish and Polish experts frightened that there would be 240 thousand bayonets! Well, isn’t it a shame to lie like that? After all, the entire Belarusian army numbers only 60 thousand people. Where does 240,000 come from?!
Dear Western partners, maybe stop causing nightmares to your own population? You don’t believe in your own fairy tales. Otherwise, they would have scurried away long ago or alerted the troops. And you, shouting “The Russians are coming!”, calmly eat coffee and croissant...
HAVE AN OPINION
Why are NATO exercises better?
Alexander KOTS
Chairman of the NATO Military Committee Petr Pavel called the Zapad-2017 exercises “serious preparation for a big war.” And despite the fact that the head of the Russian General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, met with General Pavel on the eve of the maneuvers. And he patiently explained to him that the exercises were planned and defensive in nature. And if anything happens, call, here is a communication channel that started working this year after relations were frozen in 2014. If you want, come yourself
Joint seven-day exercises of the Armed Forces of Belarus and Russia “West 2017” begin in Belarus today. The main goal of the exercises: to work out the interaction of various types of troops to ensure the military security of the Union State.
Number of participants
In total, up to 12,700 military personnel will take part in the exercises, of which about 10 thousand will be on Belarusian territory. About 3,000 of them are from Russia. It is planned to involve 370 units of armored vehicles in the maneuvers, including 140 tanks, up to 150 units of artillery, and more than 40 aircraft and helicopters.
Russian troops must leave Belarus before September 30, and the weapons and equipment of the Armed Forces of Belarus must return to their points of permanent deployment before this date.
Where will the exercises take place?
The exercises will take place at the Ruzhansky, Domanovo, Osipovichsky, Borisovsky, Lepelsky and Losvido training grounds. And also in the areas of Glubokoe and Dretun in the Vitebsk region.
At the same time, Chief of the General Staff Oleg Belokonev said that the training grounds were deliberately chosen far from the border.
During the exercise, the local authorities of the residents of Ivatsevichi should not go into the forest, and in Pruzhany they should not look for people in camouflage.
On the Internet I came across an article “During the Zapad 2017 exercises, Putin may occupy Belarus.”
I myself have been living in Kyiv for 5 years. The opinion of Belarusian residents is interesting. Is this a real threat or hysteria from neighboring Ukrainians? After the events in Ukraine and the war in Donbass, I fear for my homeland.
During the Zapad 2017 exercises, Putin may occupy Belarus (Video)
Apparently, the Kremlin decided in 2017, under the guise of the joint exercises “West 2017,” to occupy Belarus, depriving it of its formal status as an independent state allied with Putin’s Russia. Putin’s imperial passions do not subside, but flare up as the West stupidly surrenders its position after position to him. Belarus is now in an extremely difficult situation. All the positive balance that President A. Lukashenko and his Foreign Minister V. Makei managed to achieve over the years of persistently establishing relations with the West may come to an end.In general, one gets the strong impression that Putin has decided to occupy Belarus under the guise of the Zapad 2017 exercises - after all, he may not withdraw his troops back. And there will be a lot of Russian troops. Thus, out of 5,265 freighted cars for 2017 for the transportation of Russian troops and their cargo, as many as 4,126 are planned for Belarus. This is 83 times more than in 2016. Let us remember that all wars, as a rule, began under the guise of exercises.
It is possible that Putin decided to start another conflict in the West, and thereby test NATO’s reaction, but under the rule of the new American President Trump. It is also possible that the Kremlin even decided to quietly remove President Lukashenko and his team from power, who has his own uncomfortable opinion regarding everything that is happening. And in return, promote your own, absolutely predictable and obedient, or even hold a “referendum” on the full and final entry of Belarus into Russia as a federal district.
This is confirmed by the words of retired Russian general L. Reshetnikov that for Russia, Belarus is, you see, its historical part, and the Belarusian language was invented by the Bolsheviks in 1926 during the period of the erroneous policy of “indigenization” of national languages, which Stalin abolished in 1933.
Naturally, President Lukashenko could not tolerate such spitting from a neighboring state, despite the fact that Moscow disowned Reshetnikov’s words, passing them off as a personal point of view. Minsk understood everything correctly and therefore responded through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as befits a self-respecting state.
It should be added that the Kremlin is constantly pressing the Belarusian leadership with economic levers - oil and gas, financial, bans on Belarusian products. The situation is also strained by the Moscow Orthodox Church, as a branch of Putin’s imperial foreign policy. Apparently it is no coincidence that President Lukashenko began to think about the independence of the Belarusian church in order to have its own Belorussian exarch. In general, here’s a “brotherly” relationship for you! Does Belarus need such a “brother”?!
The situation is further aggravated by the fact that having taken complete control of Belarus, under the guise of exercises, Putin, with the forces deployed there, can launch an attack on rebellious Ukraine from the north. Then Belarus will unwittingly become an aggressor state, along with Russia. Thus, Putin can share the blame for the aggression, shifting part of it to Belarus. The plan appears to be very insidious, and completely in the style of the unprincipled Putin.
If Europe and the United States do not react accordingly and rally their ranks, then they will get a real war on their eastern borders. After all, striking the Baltic states from Belarus is a piece of cake. Then Putin will have the entire West of the former USSR on his plate, except Ukraine. The occupation of Belarus, if it takes place, will mean that the active phase of the already ongoing hybrid Third World War has begun in Europe, in which Europe and the United States, if they delay, may lose everything.
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