"Caucasus 2020", major military maneuvers in southern Russia

Military parade on Red Square in Moscow on June 24, 2020 (illustrative image).

AP Photo / Alexander Zemlianichenko

Text by: Daniel Vallot Follow

2 min

The military maneuvers which begin on Monday September 21 are organized in the Russian Caucasus, the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea.

Called "Caucasus 2020", they will take place over five days and mobilize nearly 13,000 soldiers and hundreds of tanks.

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From our correspondent in Moscow, 

Every year at the same period, the Russian army deploys thousands of soldiers, and above all a lot of equipment - enough to impress Russian opinion since the images of these exercises are looped on television channels, but also on countries. neighbors and the international community.

After

“Vostok 2018” in the east and “Tsentr 2019” in the center of the country, it is in the Russian Caucasus, located in the south of Russia, that the exercises take place.

But this time, unlike Zapad in 2017, NATO has not been particularly worried about these maneuvers - and the only country to be really moved is Ukraine, which said in the 'was concerned about the deployment of ships in the Black Sea.

Geopolitical tensions

In recent years, Russia has also taken advantage of these annual exercises to get closer to certain countries - the former USSR of course, but also Asian countries, as we saw two years ago with the joint exercises carried out with China.

This year, Moscow invited nine countries to participate, including Iran, China and Pakistan, but it came up against the geopolitical and military tensions of the moment.

At the last moment, India canceled its participation - officially because of the coronavirus, but probably because

The other country to have given up at the last moment is Azerbaijan - which did not want to rub shoulders with Armenia - after the military incidents this summer.  

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