Sylvie Claire / January 26, 2022
Russian armed forces launched a new series of maneuvers near Ukraine and annexed Crimea on Tuesday, with exercises involving 6,000 troops, fighter jets and bombers, according to Russian agencies.
This is a joint operation that involves, among others, the air force and anti-aircraft, groups of ships of the Black Sea and Caspian fleets, said the commander of the Russian forces for the South of Russia, Alexander Dvornikov.
According to TASS, the air force exercises involve 60 fighters and bombers in four regions, including the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014 in retaliation for a pro-Western revolution in Ukraine.
This includes coordinating naval and air action during missile strikes.
In addition, some 6,000 men are engaged in maneuvers to check their combat readiness at several bases in several regions of southern Russia.
The announcement of these exercises comes hours after the Kremlin denounced the alerting of thousands of U.S. troops due to the Russian-Western crisis over Ukraine, seeing it as a new exacerbation of tensions by Washington.