Lithuania’s prdt warns UN Secretary General against ‘aggressive and offensive’ nature of Zapad-2017


The military exercise Zapad-2017 is posing a threat to the world, Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaitė said when meeting with UN Secretary-General António Guterres in New York.

According to the Lithuanian leader, simulation of a real conflict with NATO member countries, concealed scope and scenarios of the exercise, deployment of soldiers and tactical weapons as well as unconventional actions speak about aggressive and offensive nature of Zapad-2017. The effects of capacities of nuclear weapons, artillery and missile mobilized in Kaliningrad may reach even Lisbon, she stressed.

“The world has to learn the lessons of Crimea, Transnistria, South Ossetia and Abkhazia and do not overlook aggressive actions. With the connivance of abusers, we will only encourage them to proceed,” Dalia Grybauskaitė said.

Earlier, NATO Military Committee Chairman Petr Pavel called Zapad-2017 a ‘serious preparation for a big war’.

Both Russian and Belarusian side state that their action are of purely of defensive nature. In early September, president Alyaksandr Lukashenka reiterated that the joint Belarusian-Russian war game Zapad-2017 was not aimed at attacking anyone.

According to the organizers, nearly 13,000 troops are involved in the war game as well as 40 aviation equipment pieces, 140 tanks, 150 mortars and multiple rocket launchers and 10 ships. Formally, in according with the 2011 Vienna Document, in such a case a full-scale observation is not not required. But NATO officials question the figures above and make suggestions that 100,000 soldiers may take part in the maneuvers..

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