MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian news agencies reported the start of military drills in southern Russia on Tuesday, hours after Paris said Vladimir Putin had promised not to stage new manoeuvres near the border with Ukraine for the time being.
The three weeks of nighttime tactical drills would involve missile systems, tanks and armoured vehicles, Russian news agencies quoted a spokesperson for the southern military district command as saying.
The Russian announcement did not make clear whether the drills were a new development or part of longstanding plans. Moscow had said in December that 3,000 drills would take place in the southern district during the course of 2022.
Putin met French President Emmanuel Macron in the Kremlin on Monday, and a French official had said Putin promised not to launch new military manoeuvres near Ukraine for the time being.
Russia’s southern military district borders Ukraine and includes Crimea, territory Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014. However, a list of 10 areas in southern Russia and breakaway regions of Georgia where the drills would take place did not include territories along the Ukrainian frontier.
More than 30 tactical exercises, each involving around 400 troops and about 80 pieces of military equipment, would be held at 15 ranges in the southern military district, the news agencies quoted the head of the district’s press service, Vadim Astafyev, as saying.
Macron was the top Western leader to meet Putin since Russia massed more than 100,000 troops near Ukraine. Western countries accuse Russia of planning an invasion. Moscow denies such plans but says it could carry out unspecified military action unless a number of demands are met, including a promise from NATO never to admit Ukraine.
(Reporting by Alexander Marrow and Maria Kiselyova)