according to the publication militarytimes.com in charge of training these exercises European command of the United States now is a reassessment of the feasibility of conducting war games in the current unfavorable epidemiological situation. The most likely scenario is a complete lifting maneuvers or significant reduction of their scope.
According to media reports, it “will be another attack on the United States and NATO in the preparation of the Alliance for a possible confrontation with Russia.” In March due to the outbreak of the disease COVID-2019 NATO was forced to go on the actual folding and Defender of Europe, the largest exercises in Europe since the end of the cold war. In these exercises explicitly anti-Russian, Moscow has repeatedly kritikovali for their provocative, it was planned to involve about 40 thousand NATO troops. Moreover, most of them expected to transfer from USA through Germany to landfills in the Baltic States.
Recall that the exercises BALTOPS (Baltic Operations abbreviated) was first passed in 1971, and their main purpose was containment of the USSR and a demonstration of the activity of the NATO navies as close to the Soviet borders. After 1991, Russia has participated in these exercises, the focus of which was largely offset by the development of joint search and rescue operations. When in 2014, NATO unilaterally completely broke off military cooperation with Russia, the teachings of the Alliance returned to their original task.
So, last year, BALTOPS involved 50 ships and submarines from 18 NATO countries. The ships of the Baltic fleet of the Russian Federation closely monitor their activity at the Russian borders.
