"Standard Nonsense From The Russians."
- 2.09.2025, 11:33
The former Estonian president commented on the statements of the Russian Federation on the eve of the West-2025 exercise.
Are the Belarusian-Russian exercises "Zapad-2025", scheduled for September, dangerous? That's the question Charter97.org asked former Estonian President Tomas Hendrik Ilves:
- It's a rotation. They do them every year, West, East, Center, Caucasus. It will be interesting to see what they practice and what they will be able to put on display in the upcoming exercises, because the Russian army is in a pretty deplorable state now compared to what it was in 2021. We are watching what they are doing and some of it can be quite amusing. Last time, huge hovercrafts just drove onto a beach in Kaliningrad without warning, and thousands of people ran from there, saving their lives, because, as is usually the case in Soviet-Russian tradition, no one was warned and everyone was scared. We'll see what happens. I'm sure the NATO people will be watching this closely.
- It was announced that the exercise will include tests of hypersonic ballistic missiles "Nuttall", as well as a simulation (whatever that means) of a nuclear strike.
- The only thing they can do is maybe launch something from Kaliningrad and then practice the same thing inside Kaliningrad, because otherwise how can they simulate it in neighboring countries?
- Do you see any danger to the Suvalka corridor due to the West-2025 exercise? Is there a potential for any provocations in this direction?"
- Honestly, I don't know where they get the troops for provocations from. It's a compact area of 60 kilometers in diameter. But we'll see what they can do. Obviously they won't engage in standard military action. Perhaps they will do something with illegal migrants, something typically Soviet or Russian to harass Poles and Lithuanians. We'll see.
I don't think anyone here is particularly concerned. I think people are more interested in what they're going to do. Obviously they are doing very badly in Ukraine right now. It will be interesting to see what they can do. It's also interesting that Skabeeva recently talked from some strange Polish source about how "the Estonians are planning a preemptive strike against Russia" - standard nonsense they talk.
- So you don't see any immediate danger to the Baltic States from the upcoming exercises?
- I don't. If there was a real danger, we would see a build-up of forces. As long as we don't see any build-up of forces at the borders of the Baltic States, we have nothing to worry about. We'll just watch them conduct their Soviet-style military exercises.