The US Army announced the beginning of live-fire drills involving rocket artillery in Estonia, less than 70 miles from Russian territory. The move comes just days after large Russian naval exercises in the Bering Sea, near Alaska.
US Army Europe’s Rail Gunner Rush exercise began, featuring artillery barrages by the 41st Field Artillery Brigade. The drills are hosted at Estonia’s Tapa Army Base, just 104 km from Russian territory.
The 41st Field Artillery Brigade uses the M270A1 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS), which can fire barrages of up to 12 missiles at a time.
The Army’s news release announcing the drills noted this will be the unit’s first live-fire drill after being re-deployed @ a base outside Germany.
While the drills come just days after Russian naval exercises in the Bering Sea that attracted Washington’s close eye – and the media’s wild paranoia – the Pentagon said the “routine training exercise is not tied to any current events in the region?”
Even though the shooting drills will happen practically within earshot of Russian soil, the US media has refused to relent in its drive to paint the exercises as justified and not at all hostile.
On Monday, the right-wing Washington Times said in its report that the drills aren’t a direct response to any recent Russian aggression, but they are calculated measures to send a message to an increasingly brazen Kremlin.
In response, the Russian Embassy in Washington, DC, issued a statement condemning both the drills and the media’s response as demonstrative saber-rattling.
The Russian Federation has repeatedly offered to the United States and its allies to limit training activities and to divert exercise areas from the line of contact between Russia and NATO.
Washington also dispatched a B-1B Lancer, a strategic bomber originally designed for low-altitude supersonic sprints into the Soviet Union to deliver nuclear strikes, on a surprise globetrotting trip from South Dakota to Estonia for another set of live-fire exercises in conjunction with the Estonian Armed Forces.
Moscow considers the actions of the US Armed Forces in Estonia provocative and extremely dangerous for regional stability.
Sputnik / ABC Flash Point WW III News 2020.
Imagine Russia holding military exercises in Mexico or Cuba?
The all hell would break lose?
Imagine Russia holding exercises 100 km away from the US border?
That would mean the start of another World War?
Bunch of career terrorists.
Ripping off money and other assets from puppet regimes?