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Chronology of Significant Military Maneuvers by Dr. Nikolai Sokov, CNS Senior Research Associate, August 2004
Inevitably, key doctrinal documents, such as the National Security Concept, the Military Doctrine, or the October 2003 "White Paper" issued by the Ministry of Defense, are of very general nature. They provide broad guidelines on military posture and the use of force, but are usually short on details. As a rule, additional information can be gleaned from military maneuvers, whose patterns offer important insights into anticipated conflict scenarios and planned responses to different types of attack. During the 1990s, Russian military maneuvers (or, at least, the publicly available information about them) yielded little useful information because maneuvers were few and small-scale. When the use of nuclear weapons was simulated, it was usually independent of general purpose forces and without a relationship to specific scenarios. Besides, the shaping of views on possible future conflicts and the ways of fighting them takes time. The situation began to change in 1999. On the one hand, a string of conflicts in the Balkans, especially the conflict in Kosovo in the spring of 1999, provided the likely scenarios that the Russian military deemed most dangerous. On the other hand, the Russian defense budget began to grow as the country emerged from the 1998 financial meltdown and the general economic situation started to improve. In addition, a significant reduction of the Armed Forces allowed the reallocation of funds from personnel support to training. Since 1999, the Russian military has regularly conducted large-scale maneuvers that play out several conflict scenarios, including those that involved the use of nuclear weapons. As a result, many maneuvers held in the last five years provide important insights into doctrinal and operational details that are absent from key documents. Below is a brief review of the more important exercises conducted since 1999. Their typical features can be summarized as follows.
A fairly stable pattern of maneuvers during the period of 1999-2004 demonstrates that the limited use of nuclear weapons is now firmly integrated into a rather broad range of scenarios of possible conflicts. Virtually any large-scale attack by forces that are numerically and qualitatively superior to the Russian Armed Forces risks crossing the nuclear threshold. A broader view suggests several more important observations, however:
SUMMER 1999: West-99 (Zapad-99) maneuvers The West-99 maneuvers were conducted a few months after a crucial April 1999 meeting of the Security Council. Held shortly after the beginning of the war in Kosovo, the meeting apparently initiated the development of a new military doctrine designed to deter the limited use of force against Russia. By all indications, the West-99 maneuvers were designed to test a doctrinal innovation—the limited use of nuclear weapons for the purposes of deterring a limited conventional attack or, if deterrence failed, for deescalating the conflict and returning the status quo ante. From the start, official Russian military representatives claimed that the West-99 maneuvers had no relationship to the war in Kosovo (they had been planned well before that war, in late 1998) and that they did not involve the simulated use of nuclear weapons.[1,2] Only after the end of the maneuvers did Minister of Defense Igor Sergeyev admit that the intention was, indeed, to test defense against an attack against Russia that was similar in style and scale to the war in Kosovo and that an important element of these maneuvers was a demonstration of the ability and the willingness to use nuclear weapons under conditions when "all means of resistance have been exhausted," i.e., when conventional forces are unable to repel the attack on their own.[3,4] The scenario included three stages. In the first stage (June 21-22), the alert status of troops in all Western military districts was enhanced and troops in Leningrad military district were transferred to full combat mode. In the second stage (June 22-25), Russian troops and the Baltic fleet together with the Belorussian army defended against an attack from the West. That attack included a strike with 450 aircraft and 120 cruise missiles against the territory of Belarus and with 110 aircraft and 40 cruise missiles against Kaliningrad oblast. In the final stage (June 25-26), Russian troops repelled the attack and returned the situation to the status quo ante; that stage included the simulated use of nuclear weapons. Primary attention was paid to Kaliningrad exclave—a piece of Russian territory between Poland and Lithuania widely considered Russia's "Achilles' heel" as it is the part of the country most difficult to defend. According to the scenario, troops in Kaliningrad oblast and the Baltic fleet were supposed to repel the attack without reinforcements.[5] The "nuclear component" included simulated strikes with air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs) from heavy bombers from "around the corner"—Russian Air Force slang that denotes a flight toward the northern tip of Norway and then a turn left toward the north Atlantic—a typical training and combat mission in Soviet times. Two Tu-95MS heavy bombers undertook a 15-hour flight "around the corner" toward Iceland, where they simulated the launch of ALCMs against U.S. territory. Simultaneously, two Tu-160 heavy bombers took a similar route, but simulated ALCM launches against continental Europe from near the northern tip of Norway. According to newspaper reports, their targets were airbases in Poland and the Baltic states (it was assumed that the territory of these countries was used by NATO), Norway, as well as aircraft carrier groups in the Barents Sea. Upon their return to the Russian territory, the heavy bombers conducted live launches against test ranges in southern Russia.[2,6,7,8,9] Following the end of the West-99 maneuvers, Deputy Chief of the General Staff Yuriy Baluyevskiy told reporters that not only aggressors, but also countries whose territory is used for an aggression would become potential targets, a clear reference to the relevant provision of the Military Doctrine that allows the use of nuclear weapons not only against nuclear states and their allies, but also states that attack Russia "in concert with" nuclear states.[10] In September 1999, smaller-scale maneuvers were conducted in the Far East.
The main purpose of these maneuvers was similar to West-99: the Pacific
fleet and the Long-Range Air Force simulated defense from and strikes against
aircraft carrier groups.[11] APRIL 2000 April 2000 Air Force maneuvers were relatively small-scale. They simulated
defense against strikes by land- and carrier-based aircraft. These maneuvers
were conducted in the southwest of Russia between the Black and Caspian seas
and included strikes against land and sea targets. In addition to tactical
aircraft, Tu-22M3 medium bombers (classified in Russia as long-range or
strategic) played a prominent role, as well as Tu-95MS and Tu-160 heavy bombers,
which for the first time conducted launches of conventional long-range Kh-101
ALCMs. Maneuvers also included the use of S-300 anti-aircraft and tactical
anti-missile systems. SEPTEMBER 2000 In early September 2000, the Russian strategic Air Force participated in a large air defense exercise that included the armies of Central Asian states, Armenia, and Belarus. Tu-95MS, Tu-160 and Tu-22M3 long-range bombers flew missions in the vicinity of the Black and Caspian seas, as well as in the west of Russia. Cruise missile launches were conducted in the north of Russia by Tu-95MS and in the south by Tu-22M3. These maneuvers had several distinguishing features that set them apart from earlier exercises, including West-99:
Sources: FEBRUARY 2001 During a "strategic command and staff training" conducted February 13-16, long-range Air Force units performed missions in the north of Russia (an "around the corner" mission around Norway toward the North Atlantic, coming within the range for launches against U.S. territory) and in the Far East close to Japan; the latter flights apparently simulated strikes against U.S. bases in Japan. Japanese authorities filed a formal protest, accusing Russian aircraft of violating their country's airspace. Subsequently, heavy and medium bombers performed traditional live launches in the south of Russia. As part of the maneuvers, the Strategic Rocket Forces launched a Topol ICBM from the Plesetsk test range; this launch was conducted by a crew from the division where the missile had been deployed rather than test range personnel. Almost simultaneously, a strategic submarine launched an SLBM (type not reported) from the Barents Sea. According to unofficial reports, launches of the ICBM and the SLBM were synchronized with live ALCM launches in the south of Russia; this allowed the testing of early warning systems. According to unofficial assessments, activities of strategic forces, both
air- and land-based, simulated limited use of nuclear weapons under conditions
in which a limited conventional conflict has gotten out of control and is
escalating. One U.S. journalist (with reference to a National Security Agency
report) suggested that in the Far East, Russian strategic forces simulated
interference in a conflict between the United States and China over Taiwan, on the side of
China. According to that estimate, the Russian scenario supposedly began with a
Chinese attack against Taiwan, followed by the use of U.S. naval and ground
forces, after which Russia threatened nuclear strikes against U.S. forces in the
region, including in South Korea and Japan. According to that report, the
scenario in the western part of Russia assumed the now-traditional scenario of a
NATO attack that had been practiced in several earlier maneuvers. None of
Russian open sources mentioned the "Taiwan scenario;" all of them referred only
to an attack against Russia itself. APRIL 2001 The next "command and staff training" took place less than two months later
and was primarily devoted to air defense. It was part of the larger maneuvers
Yuzhniy
Shchit Sodruzhestva-2001 ("The Southern Shield of the Commonwealth-2001").
According to Chief of the Air Force Anatoliy Kornukov, these maneuvers featured
the largest number of long-range bomber sorties in three years.
Russian long-range bombers (two medium Tu-22M3 and two heavy Tu-95MS) again
landed in Belarus. That mission was used to test air defenses in the west of
Russia and Belarus; the bombers' routes were intended to simulate
likely attack routes of NATO aircraft. Similar raids were also conducted in
Central Asia over Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Practice bombing with
high-yield FAB-3000 gravity bombs, which had not been used since the war in
Afghanistan, was conducted by a Tu-22M3 at a test range in Saratov oblast near the
main basing site of heavy bombers. Subsequently, Tu-160 and Tu-22M3 bombers
conducted practice launches of Kh-55 long-range and Kh-22 short-range cruise
missiles, respectively, in Kazakhstan. Newspaper reports hinted at a possible
relationship between these launches and the unstable situation in Afghanistan.
Toward the end of the maneuvers, Russian Tu-95MS strategic bombers also made
raids toward Alaska in what U.S. officials described as routine annual
springtime maneuvers, closely skirting U.S. airspace. SEPTEMBER 2001 Maneuvers to simulate defense against a large-scale airspace attack began on 10 September 2001. According to Air Force chief Anatoliy Kornukov, they were intended to cover the whole Arctic, as well as northern parts of the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans, including the vicinity of Norway, Iceland, the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. The main task was reportedly to penetrate the air defense of NATO and North America (NORAD). As part of the exercise, long-range bombers were moved to auxiliary bases in Anadyr, Tiksi, and Vorkuta. A new element of these maneuvers was, according to newspaper reports, training for the use of long-range ALCMs outside the reach of NORAD (since Russia has had long-range nuclear ALCMs since the 1980s, apparently these reports meant conventional ALCMs, which began to appear in the Russian Armed Forces only in the late 1990s). The only real launches planned in these regions involved short-range missiles launched from Tu-22M3 over the Kamchatka Peninsula in a simulated attack against an aircraft carrier group. The plan was abruptly changed immediately after news of terrorist attacks in
New York and Washington, DC on 11 September 2001 reached Moscow. To avoid
possible complications and misperceptions, the Air Force terminated all
"practical activities" planned for the ongoing maneuvers following a request
from the United States. This included a termination of flights not only toward
U.S. territory, but also "around the corner" toward Norway and Iceland. Launches
of short-range ALCMs from five Tu-22M3 bombers (three belonging to the Naval Air
Command and two from the Air Force) over Kamchatka against seaborne targets were
still conducted, but only within Russian territorial waters. Also, both heavy
and medium bombers practiced missile launches at an internal Russian test range
near the Caspian sea. FEBRUARY 2002 These maneuvers were dubbed a "compensation" for the cancellation of Strategic Air Force maneuvers in September 2001. The scenario was changed, however: instead of flight routes toward U.S. territory and Europe, Russian long-range bombers simulated attacks against targets to the south of the Russian border consistent with plans (developed in the mid-1990s) for defeating a possible incursion of Islamic extremists from Afghanistan to Central Asia. Air Force activities were closely coordinated with the 201st Russian division deployed in Tajikistan. It is possible that earlier plans were cancelled in part out of a desire to reemphasize U.S.-Russian cooperation in the fight against international terrorism. It is difficult to determine whether U.S. bases, which appeared in Central Asia in the end of 2001, figured in the exercises. Russia soon departed from the practice of demonstrative restraint, and in
April Russian heavy bombers performed the now-routine flights toward U.S.
airspace near Alaska. Some observers attributed that change in behavior to the
U.S. decision to withdraw from the ABM Treaty. JUNE-JULY 2002 Public reports did not mention the participation of nuclear-capable delivery
vehicles in maneuvers that took place in June-July 2002, but the event was
nevertheless interesting in many respects. For the first time since the 1980s, the Russian
army simulated the call-up of reserves, the rapid transfer of reservists from
the European part of Russia to Siberia, and then, using these troops, the repelling
of
an external aggression. According to the Military Doctrine, the call-up of
reserves takes place during regional and large-scale wars, i.e., the types of
conflicts that are associated with use of nuclear weapons. AUGUST 2002 Large-scale maneuvers in the Caspian Sea did not involve nuclear-capable
delivery vehicles, but they were held in a strategically important region, which
is widely considered a hotbed of tension and an area of possible conflict,
including between Russia and the United States. On the surface, these
exercises simulated the use of special forces against terrorists who had captured an
oil rig. The scale of maneuvers was considerably greater, however: 10,500
personnel, 60 ships, and more than 30 aircraft. According to many independent
assessments, Russia intended to show muscle and assert its dominant role in the
region. OCTOBER 2002 In October 2002 Russia conducted unprecedented large-scale launches of
strategic weapons: a sea-launched ballistic missile from the Okhotsk Sea launched
against a target on the Kola Peninsula (a highly unusual trajectory for Russian
test launches); a Topol (SS-25) from a road-mobile launcher; a SS-N-18 SLBM from
a Delta III submarine; ALCMs launched from two Tu-160 and two Tu-95MS heavy
bombers against targets in the Volga region and in the north of Russia. All
ballistic missiles were launched within one hour. According to unofficial
assessments, the exercises tested Russia's ability to conduct a large-scale
nuclear strike. FEBRUARY 2003 On 12-13 February 2003, Tu-22M3 medium bombers conducted strikes at test ranges in Saratov oblast (eight aircraft on February 12) and in Kazakhstan (eight aircraft
on February 13). According to Long-Range Air Force chief Igor Khvorov, in
both cases aircraft practiced the destruction of enemy airbases. He noted that, in
contrast to the Soviet period, land targets have become the main priority of
long-range aircraft, including medium bombers, whereas previously their main
targets were sea-based (probably carrier groups). MARCH 2003 The Strategic Rocket Force held a relatively small-scale exercise combined
with an inspection by the Ministry of Defense. The exercise was conducted in the
Teykovo division, which consists of road-mobile Topol ICBMs, and lasted
for ten days. The central element of the event was an attempt by Russian
satellites to find Topol mobile launchers when dispersed from the basing
area. In addition to satellites, several groups of Special Forces also searched
for the launchers. Following that phase of the exercise, a Topol ICBM
from the Teykovo division was launched from
Plesetsk test range; an unusual
element of the event was that the launch command was relayed by radio instead of
customary phone lines. In the meantime, the "radio-electronic
suppression" service ("sredstva radio-elektronnoy borby," or REB) tried to jam
the signal in vain. Similar, but barely reported, maneuvers were conducted by
strategic Air Force (the 37th Army). MAY 2003: INDIAN OCEAN MANEUVERS In May 2003, Russia conducted unprecedented maneuvers in the Indian and Pacific Oceans together with India. They took place immediately after the end of major combat action in Iraq. Official military sources announced that these maneuvers had been planned in advance and had no relation to the war in Iraq. That statement appeared credible: the first trip of Russian naval ships to the Indian ocean since the 1980s undoubtedly required many months of preparation; coordination with India also required time and effort. The departure of ships, originally planned for February, was postponed until early April due to the increasingly tense situation in the Persian Gulf.[1,2,3] Still, it appears significant that Russia decided to hold maneuvers in spite of the still-ongoing war. Many elements of these maneuvers can be interpreted as a signal to the United States that American power was not invincible as far as the Russian military was concerned. According to newspaper reports, the scenario of these exercises simulated escalation of a regional conflict to the nuclear level; they were supposed to improve coordination between the Strategic Air Force, the Navy and other branches of the Armed Forces in the west, east, north and south of Russia, as well as in South Asia. The "air" component of the exercises included four Tu-160 and nine Tu-95MS heavy bombers, twelve Tu-22M3 medium bombers, and four Il-78 "flying tankers." Two Tu-160 and four Tu-95MS heavy bombers flew to the Arabian Sea and after a five-hour flight, Tu-95MS bombers launched cruise missiles against naval targets from a distance of 3,000km; Russian ships in the area provided targeting information and in-flight trajectory correction. The missiles that were launched were nuclear-capable Kh-55. (Initially news sources mistakenly reported a new modification—Kh-65SE equipped with conventional warheads.) The cruise missiles were unarmed, however. In the meantime, Tu-160s, according to newspaper reports (there was no official confirmation), simulated the launch of cruise missiles against Diego-Garcia; reportedly, they targeted U.S. military installations on the island. According to Chief of the Air Force Vladimir Mikhaylov, en route to the Indian Ocean, Russian heavy bombers crossed the territories of "two CIS countries," Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Other long-range bombers held practice bombing at test ranges inside Russia. In the Pacific Ocean, four Tu-22M3 medium bombers (two belonging to the Air Force and two to the Navy) launched four Kh-22M short-range anti-ship missiles against simulated naval targets (probably carrier groups). Russian ships in the Arabian Sea (the group consisted of nine ships from the Pacific and Black Sea Fleets) simulated a search-and-destroy mission vis-à-vis American Los Angeles class SSNs and launched sea-based cruise missiles. Simultaneously, strategic submarines from the Northern and the Pacific fleets conducted SLBM launches while Russian Space Forces simulated disruption of U.S. satellite communications.[4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13] The second stage of maneuvers, which began only a few days later, was
devoted to joint actions of the Russian and the Indian navies and included,
among other elements, submarine search-and-destroy missions (two Indian
submarines served as notional targets).[14,15] AUGUST 2003 In August 2003 the Russian Pacific Fleet held maneuvers in the Sea of Japan and Sea of Okhotsk. Several Northern Fleet submarines were transferred to the area under the polar ice. Two Tu-160 heavy bombers were transferred from their main base at Engels (Saratov oblast) to the Pacific; Russia's Minister of Defense Sergey Ivanov flew to the maneuvers on board of one of these bombers. Long-range bombers (including Tu-160s, Tu-95MS from Ukrainka base in the Far East, and Tu-22M3) simulated elimination of a large enemy naval group together with the Navy at a great distance (more than a thousand kilometers from shore). The exercises also tested the brand-new system of sea and air surveillance that had been created in the Far East. Almost simultaneously Russian troops and the Navy held another exercise in
the Caspian Sea, this time their scenario assumed defense against an attack from
the sea instead of the 2002 scenario of anti-terrorist operations. These exercises were advertised as the biggest in over 20 years. They lasted about a month—from late January to 17 February with some elements continuing beyond that point—and involved all branches of the armed forces as well as all six military districts. Officially they were classified as "command and staff training" (komandno-shtabnaya trenirovka) as opposed to maneuvers. Deputy Chief of the General Staff Colonel General Yuriy Baluyevskiy described the difference in the following way: exercises (training) primarily involve the command and staff level with troops playing a subsidiary role while maneuvers emphasize troop operations.[1] Like similar events in previous years, these exercises were apparently intended to test the ability of the Russian Armed Forces to fight the most likely conflicts of the future—limited and regional wars; among them the latter category allows for limited use of nuclear weapons for the purposes of de-escalation and termination of a conflict that cannot be won with conventional weapons alone. Formally the scenario assumed attacks "by terrorists" from four directions: east, south, west, and northwest. Accordingly, defense was simulated on all four fronts (with the emphasis on the south and the northwest), plus against air and space attacks.[1] In an attempt to dispel the impression that Russia was training for a war against the United States, Baluyevskiy emphasized at a press conference that "There is no hint that [the enemy] is the United States of America. There is no hint that it is any other state, whether European or Asian: the opponent is notional."[1] Many observers remarked, however, that from a military point of view there is no such thing as an abstract opponent. Specific states are always kept in mind.[2] One prominent expert, former director of the research institute of Strategic Rocket Forces (SRF) Vladimir Dvorkin, rhetorically asked which country other than the United States could mount a space attack, against which the Armed Forces were defending Russia.[3] Indeed, Baluyevskiy noted Russian concerns that the United States was apparently contemplating making nuclear weapons "an instrument of achieving military missions and lowering the nuclear threshold." His reference to the October 2003 Ministry of Defense document was also telling: that document did list the enlargement of NATO and a string of U.S. military campaigns in the 1990s and the early 2000s as security challenges. He also admitted that "one does not fight Bin Laden with strategic missiles." The phase that involved General Purpose troops included mobilization of 10,000 reservists in the Siberian Military District (MD) and their transport to several training centers in the European part of Russia for live-fire exercises. After that troops from the Moscow MD were transferred further to the Leningrad MD to reinforce border guards in a simulation of an external attack from the northwest (it is likely that the scenario assumed the territory of Baltic states was being used by NATO for an attack on Russia). Reportedly, new systems of command, control and communications were tested during the exercises.[4,5] The naval phase involved 10 surface ships and seven submarines and included, among other elements, live-fire exercises of anti-missile defenses: the heavy cruiser Petr Velikiy intercepted cruise missiles launched from Russian heavy bombers, a sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM) launched from a submarine (at least, this was planned, but it has remained unclear whether this latter launch was implemented), and the firing of an intermediate range ballistic missile (there is no information about where it was launched from and reports indicated that these were simulators of ballistic missiles).[6,7] According to some reports, these exercises tested the naval version of the tactical missile defense system S-300, which is called "Fort-M."[8] Simultaneously, 14 heavy bombers (Tu-160 and Tu-95MS) conducted flights in three directions: to the North Atlantic, to the north of Russia (over the Barents Sea), and to the south (the Ashuluk test range in Astrakhan Oblast).[9] In contrast to previous exercises, Tu-160s that flew over the North Atlantic did not conduct launches of ALCMs. However, three Tu-95MS bombers launched ALCMs over the Barents Sea. Two were launched at the Novaya Zemlya test range and at least one was intercepted by surface ships as part of the anti-missile defense practice.[10,11,12] Launches of strategic ballistic missiles occupied an unusually prominent place: one SLBM, two ICBMs, and a civilian launch vehicle with a military satellite. In a rare exception, the launch of RSM-54 or RM-29RMU missiles [NATO designation SS-N-23] toward the usual target—the Kura test range in Kamchatka—from the Project 667BDRM [NATO name Delta-IV] submarine Novomoskovsk failed. This failure occurred at a most inopportune moment: as President Vladimir Putin observed the launch from the strategic submarine Arkhangelsk, a Project 941 Akula (NATO name Typhoon) submarine. An attempt to immediately launch another missile failed as well. Immediately following the first failure, a flurry of reports made contradictory claims: there was an explosion, the missile fell into the water, the launch was blocked by a satellite, etc. The Chief of the Navy Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov quickly declared that no "physical" launch should have taken place at all: it was supposed to be a simulation.[13] Not a single commentator believed that announcement, however. In the end, it became clear that between the third and the fourth minutes of the launch sequence the targeting system of the submarine failed and the electronic system immediately blocked the launch.[14,15] The day after the Novomoskovsk's failed launches, another submarine of the same class, Karelia, made a fresh attempt to launch an SLBM of the same type. At first, the flight was normal, but after 98 seconds (at the time of the separation of the first stage) the missile began to deviate from its trajectory, activating the self-destruction mechanism.[16,17] In contrast to several failures of the Navy, the SRF passed the exercise with flying colors. The SRF and the Space Troops planned three launches: a Molniya (R-7) space-launch vehicle with a military satellite, a Topol ICBM, and an RS-18 (a.k.a. UR-100UTTKh, NATO designation SS-19), which was remotely launched from Baykonur in Kazakhstan, demonstrating the ability to control ICBMs directly anywhere in Russia without passing through the full command chain. The central piece of the exercise was the launch of a Topol ICBM (an
earlier version of Topol-M) conducted from a mobile launcher about 50
kilometers from Plesetsk.[18,19,20,21] The missile carried a new warhead equipped with
hypersonic engines that allow the warhead to reach speeds of Mach 6 and change
its trajectory.[22,23,24] A combination of complicated trajectory and high speed makes
the new warhead very difficult to intercept. Some sources reported that the new
Topol warhead was based on the new X-90 (AS-19
Koala) hypersonic cruise missile, which eventually is supposed to replace the old Soviet X-55 ALCM.
Last updated 15 November 2004
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