Lydia Kelly
[Reuters]- Russia’s new military reforms address possible NATO expansion and the use of Kyiv by “collective Western powers” to wage a mixed war against Russia, said Russia’s new military reforms in Ukraine. said the newly appointed general in charge of military operations.
In his first public comment since taking office on January 11, Valery Gerasimov addressed the issue of military mobilization after President Vladimir Putin was forced to reprimand the military after public criticism. Admitted.
Military reforms announced in mid-January have been approved by President Putin and can be adjusted to address threats to Russia’s security, Gerasimov told news website Argumenty i Fakty late Monday.
“Today, such threats include the North Atlantic Alliance’s ambitions of expansion into Finland and Sweden and the use of Ukraine as a tool to wage a hybrid war against our country,” the general staff of the military said.
Finland and Sweden applied to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization last year after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Moscow’s new military plan will add troops to Karelia, Russia’s northern region, which borders Finland.
The reform also calls for the two military districts of Moscow and Leningrad, which existed before their merger in 2010, to become part of the Western Military District.
In Ukraine, Russia plans to add three motorized rifle divisions as part of combined arms formations in the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, some of which Moscow claims to have annexed in September.
“The main goal of this work is to ensure the protection of our sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Gerasimov said.
“acting against the entire western population”
Gerasimov added that modern Russia had never seen “the intensity of military hostilities” like this, forcing it to carry out offensive operations to stabilize the situation.
“Our country and its armed forces today act against the whole West,” said Gerasimov.
Eleven months after invading Ukraine, Russia has shifted its war rhetoric from an operation to “de-naz” and “demilitarize” its neighbors to an increasingly assertive defense against aggressive Western powers. has changed.
Kyiv and its Western allies have called it an act of aggression without reason, and the West is sending increasingly heavy weapons to Ukraine to help it resist Russian forces.
Gerasimov and Defense Ministry leaders have faced sharp criticism over multiple setbacks on the battlefield and Moscow’s failure to secure victory in a campaign the Kremlin expected would take only a short time.
The country’s mobilization, which mobilized an additional 300,000 people in the fall, proceeded chaotically.
“Our mobilization training system was not fully adapted to new modern economic relations,” Gerasimov said. “So we had to fix everything on the go.”
(Written by Lidia Kelly, Melbourne; edited by Himani Sarkar)
