General Valery Gerasimov, the chief of Russia’s general staff, told Curtis Scaparrotti, a U.S general who is NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, that Moscow’s latest military exercise was purely defensive, the RIA news agency reported.
RIA said that Gerasimov was referring to the exercise, codenamed “Zapad”, or “West”, which began on Thursday and will last until Sept. 20. It is being conducted on military ranges in Belarus, western Russia, Russia’s exclave of Kaliningrad and in the Baltic Sea.
