Putin stages huge military drills in game of ‘brinkmanship’ with West

March 23, 2015 — SpaceDaily.com reports: “Mammoth Russian military drills ordered by President Vladimir Putin from the Pacific to the Black Sea are designed to send a message to the West: keep your distance and don’t overplay your hand on Ukraine, observers say.

Since the start of the Ukraine crisis more than a year ago, Russia has flexed its muscles with a series of war games but the scale of the latest military exercises — including sending nuclear bombers to Crimea and ballistic missiles to Kaliningrad in central Europe — has triggered a series of new questions.

Experts say whatever the purpose of the latest manoeuvres involving tens of thousands of troops, the intent is clear: to show Putin’s Russia will stop at nothing to protect its interests.

Military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer said Russia was pursuing a two-pronged strategy: using ‘nuclear blackmail’ to try to press the West into making concessions amid sanctions over Ukraine while making sure its forces are ready for any full-scale military confrontation.

‘This is brinkmanship, balancing on the brink of war,’ he told AFP, adding that in the current atmosphere of shattered ties with the West the Kremlin is not ruling out any scenarios…” (Russia is warming up for Armageddon. Soon a peace program will be contracted for the Middle East nations – Daniel 11: 21, 24. It will be a peace contract for seven years but broken after 42 months – Daniel 9:27. Russia is the nation that then says: “…I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates, To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations…” – Ezekiel 38:11, 12. See the next two reports.)

Russia flexes muscles with Arctic military drills

March 17, 2015 — SpaceDaily.com reports: “Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered a drill of some 38,000 troops in the Arctic as part of a major show of strength amid tensions with the West over Ukraine.

Putin put the Northern Fleet on full combat readiness in a snap inspection of Moscow’s military power in the strategic region.

‘New challenges and threats to our military security demand a further raising of the military capabilities of our armed forces,’ Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said.

A military spokesmen said that some 5,000 troops were also being drilled in Russia’s far-east and a further 500 close to the volatile southern Caucasus region, news agencies reported.

The drills are the latest in a succession of large-scale military manoeuvres that Moscow has ordered around the vast nation with relations with the West at a post-Cold War low over the crisis in Ukraine…”

Northcom: Russian Cruise Missile Threat to U.S. Grows

March 22, 2015 — The Washington Free Beacon reports: “Russia is developing a long-range cruise missile that poses a new threat to the United States, the commander of the U.S. Northern Command warned this week.

‘Russia is progressing toward its goal of deploying long-range, conventionally-armed cruise missiles with ever increasing stand-off launch distances on its heavy bombers, submarines, and surface combatants, augmenting the Kremlin’s toolkit of flexible deterrent options short of the nuclear threshold,’ Adm. William Gortney, Northcom chief who heads the U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said Thursday.

‘Should these trends continue, over time NORAD will face increased risk in our ability to defend North America against Russian cruise missile threats,’ he said in prepared testimony to the House Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces…”