This was confirmed by the UK intelligence services on Monday “It is very likely” that Russia has canceled key military exercises planned for September, and they have pointed out that the Russian army’s “poor performance” in Ukraine has shown that these exercises are “of limited value”.. “It is very likely that Russia canceled its Zapad 23 maneuvers, its Joint Strategic Exercise (JSE) and a major annual event that was scheduled as planned the pinnacle of the year of military training”they said, according to a statement released by the UK MoD via their account on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter.
Thus, they explained that “Since 2010, Russia has been conducting four-year cycles with rotations of its JSEs in the country”. although “Russia has been deploying its JSE to western Russia at least every two years since 2021, given its priority of addressing what it perceives as a NATO threat”.
Why did Russia cancel Zapad 23, its major annual military exercise?
British intelligence has stressed that Zapad 21 was “the largest Russian (military) exercise since Soviet times,” before emphasizing that “the poor performance of the Russian army in Ukraine underscored that the JSE They have limited value at a training level and were more of a show.”
“Russia probably canceled Zapad 23 due to the lack of available troops and equipment,” they reported, while emphasizing that “there is a realistic possibility that the Russian leadership will also be sensitive to internal criticism for again having a bad JSE in wartime.” carried out”.
