Russia begins war games near Georgia

June 29, 2009 - 9:14PM

Russia has mobilised thousands of troops in the North Caucasus in sweeping war games aimed at warning foes that its military remains alert since fighting a war with Georgia in the area last year.

Georgia swiftly condemned the exercises as "dangerous" and accused Moscow of seeking to stoke tensions in the region.

"Holding such large-scale exercises in this region... is dangerous and is playing with fire. This is aimed at further increasing tensions in the region," Georgia's deputy foreign minister, Alexander Nalbandov, told AFP on Monday.

Dubbed Caucasus 2009, the week-long exercises are just north of where Russia and Georgia fought over the pro-Moscow rebel region of South Ossetia.

The war games are seen as Moscow's response to recent NATO exercises in Georgia and experts say they are meant as an admonishment to Georgia, which Russia says is rearming its military.

About 8,500 troops are participating in the exercises and up to 200 tanks, 450 armoured cars and 250 artillery pieces of various types, according to the Russian defence ministry.

The war game focus on counter-terrorism and the defence of strategic targets, the ministry said, and will run until July 6 - the day US President Barack Obama arrives for a much anticipated summit in Moscow.

"The aim of the exercises is to establish the actual state of battle readiness and troop mobilisation deployed in Russia's southwest region," local military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Andrei Bobrun told Russian news agencies.

The exercises will involve more troops than the Caucasus 2008 war games and include units from Russia's Black Sea Fleet and its airforce. Some 8,000 soldiers took part in last year's manoeuvres, which wrapped up shortly before the Russia-Georgia war broke.

A high-ranking military source was quoted by news agency Interfax as saying that Georgia was still seeking "military adventures" and it had rebuilt its military capacity to the same level as in August last year.

"The current Georgian leadership has not given up on new military adventures... or attempts to resolve its territorial problems through the use of force," the source said.

"The exercises will certainly contribute to stability in the south of Russia and the Caucasus as a whole and cool down the fantasies of some warmongers."

Russian troops now based in the Georgian rebel regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia will also participate in the exercises, though the defence ministry did not specify their number.

Russia recognised the breakaway Georgian regions as independent last year following the five-day war over South Ossetia.

Since then Moscow has been extremely critical of any military cooperation between NATO and Georgia. It repeatedly denounced NATO's war games in Georgia in May and June, which involved about 1,100 troops from 16 countries.

Last month, a Russian deputy defence minister said "adjustments" would be made to the Caucasus 2009 exercises in response to the NATO war games in Georgia, an ex-Soviet state that has sought to join the Western alliance.

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