Russia is set to begin 10 days of 'war games' in Belarus in co-operation with the Belarussian military, amid rising tensions in the region over Ukraine.
Many in the West fear that the war games are being used as cover to begin a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, something that the Russian military and government deny.
Around 30,000 troops are expected to take part in the training mission. It is known that Russian fighter jets and S-400 surface-to-air missile systems are also being deployed.
This is the biggest deployment of Russian troops to Belarus since the end of the Cold War in 1990.
Many fear that the troops in Belarus, along with the huge numbers of Russian troops stationed in Russia on Ukraine's Eastern border, will be used to invade Ukraine in order to either replace the Ukrainian government with a pro-Russian government, to fully annex the East of the country where many ethnic Russians live, or to even fully occupy the nation, a scenario seen as the least likely of the three.
The Ukrainian military itself has been greatly expanded since the 2014 war over Crimea and Donbass and has received huge amounts of weapons from Western nations such as the US and UK.
If any conflict was to take place between Ukraine and Russia it would likely be the bloodiest conflict in Europe since the Second World War and completely upend global security.
Eugene Chausovsky, a geopolitical analyst at Newlines Institute, says:
"I th ink Russia wants to signal that it's very serious about the potential for war. And I think it will be preparing for what that could look like. It wants to send a message to Ukraine, its Western backers and their citizens to extract as many concessions as possible or at least some kind of understanding."
Adding that this does not mean war is inevitable:
"Russia is using these military buildups and exercises as a form of leverage to signal to the West that it wants to rewrite the rules of the security order in Europe. However, actually taking military action would completely change the situation and would deprive Russia of this leverage."
A key demand of Russia is that Ukraine be banned from entering NATO, which it says threatens its own security, a demand that thus far the other NATO member states have said is completely unacceptable.
[Based on reporting by: MSN]
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