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Military drills

Moscow dismisses reports of alleged ‘Russian threat’ over West-2017 drills

The Russian defense official has assured of the exercise's defensive nature

© Alexei Druzhinin/TASS

MOSCOW, August 29. /TASS/. The West-2017 international drills have an absolutely defensive character, Deputy Russian Defense Minister Alexander Fomin said.

"I stress that the West-2017 exercise, besides its anti-terrorist goals, has an absolutely defensive character," Fomin said.

Read also

Belarus invites Ukraine and NATO to monitor West-2017 military drills

Although the drills are mostly conducted on the territory of Belarus, participants of maneuvers deal with a simulated adversary, which has no relation to a particular region, he said.

"According to our assessments, the situation envisaged by the scenario of the exercise may erupt in any region of the world," Fomin explained.

The reports of an alleged ‘Russian threat’ in the wake of West-2017 military exercises have nothing to do with reality:

"For several months now, major world media outlets [followed by politicians] have been rousing public opinion, spreading myths about ‘a Russian threat.’ None of these paradoxical versions has anything to do with reality, which has been confirmed on many occasions both by officials of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus," Fomin said.

The Russian-Belarusian joint military drills are scheduled to take place on September 14-20

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Military drills

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