Russia flexes muscles with Arctic military drills

AFP/ReutersMoscowRussian President Vladimir Putin has 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.The minister said that the order came from Putin, who has promised to spend more than 21tn roubles ($340bn) by the end of the decade to overhaul Russia’s fighting forces.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.Ukraine and its Western allies have accused Moscow of pouring thousands of troops over the border to spearhead a pro-Russian uprising aimed at halting Kiev’s pivot towards Europe and the United States. Moscow denies the allegations. The start of the drill came as Putin appeared in public at a meeting with the leader of ex-Soviet Kyrgyzstan after a 10-day absence that had sparked a flurry of rumours about his health.Moscow has made its frozen Arctic north a key strategic region as global warming spurs international jostling for the spoils of the area’s vast natural resources.Norway is currently conducting some of its largest military exercises in decades not far away from its border with Russia.That exercise, called “Joint Viking”, involves over 5,000 personnel and is presented by Oslo as the largest drill in that part of the country since 1967.Tensions between Russia and Europe worsened last year, leading eight northern European nations to promise to boost co-operation to counter an increase in Moscow’s military activity.Nato made new allegations last week that Russia was arming separatists in east Ukraine, where more than 6,000 people have been killed in nearly a year of fighting.The West and Kiev accuse Russia of supplying arms and soldiers to support the pro-Russian separatists. Moscow denies the claims.Nato says it counted more than 100 intercepts of Russian planes into members’ airspace last year, three times more than in 2013.The intercepts have forced civilian planes to change their courses and Britain scrambled Typhoon interceptor planes after two long-range bombers flew over the English Channel.Norway said its military drills had been planned before the Ukraine crisis.“However, the current security situation in Europe shows that the exercise is more relevant than ever,” Lieutenant-General Haga Lunde said in a statement.The Russian exercises are due to last for much of the week.