Flashback: Russian "West 2013" Nuclear Wargames

[Michael K.]

Russian total military mobilization was tested en masse two years ago, before the current polical crises had become diplomatically actionable.  The pattern of preparations evinces a question of what larger plan today's events may be part of.

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/russia-china-hold-large-scale-war-games/

Six months before the Ukraine's Western backed coup of February 2014, 13,000 Russian and Belarusian troops massed near the Polish border in a mock nuclear attack and armored advance on a western state.  This follows closely the announced opening in June of the first Russian military air base in Eastern Europe since the cold war in the same area, near Lida, Belarus.  At the same time China's PLA conducted a 40,000 troop joint forces wargame in Western China aimed," to boost Chinese combined arms warfare capabilities that integrate air, naval, and ground forces for long-distance fighting, joint air defense, and joint warfighting on unfamiliar terrain."

Earlier the same year, starting in March, Russia practiced seizing the Crimea, the given justification being in response to developments in Syria, as reported by RT,

http://www.rt.com/op-edge/russia-war-games-nato-intervention-syria-268/

According to the Kremlin, the war games involved about 7,000 Russian servicemen, Russian Special Forces, Russian Marines, and airborne rapid deployment troops. All of Russia's different services were involved and used the exercises to test their interoperability. Over thirty Russian warships based out of the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol in the Crimean Peninsula and the Russian port of Novorossiysk in Krasnodar Krai will be participating. The objective of the games are to show that Russia could mobilize for any event at a moments notice.

And in July of the same year, Russia conducted its most massive mobilizations since the Cold War, in a "snap drill" with only 48 hours given to mobilize:

http://www.rt.com/news/russia-war-games-far-east-084/

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu received an order to test the battle readiness of the Eastern command, which unites military forces in the Far East and Trans-Baikal. The request was received from President Vladimir Putin at 01:00 local time (21:00 GMT) on Saturday, July 13.

Following the order, 160,000 servicemen were put on high alert and began advancing toward the training sites.
   
According to the Defense Ministry, around 1,000 tanks and armored vehicles, 130 planes and helicopters, and 70 ships are taking part in the war games.

Similar unannounced drills have already been performed in the southern, west and central military districts, with President Putin calling them "extremely useful and effective in terms of identifying problems and their subsequent removal."