The Russian military is muddying the waters

First, there was the announcement that Russia’s Defense Ministry will hold drills for reservists in all of the country’s military commands in August-October.  Now comes yet another announcement, this time that Russia's will be holding military exercises this week involving 100 aircraft in the west of the country near the Ukraine border.  This kind of activity does not mean that Russia is saber-rattling or somehow threatening anybody, much less so getting ready for war with NATO.  But, yes, Russia is definitely muddying the waters.

Such exercises are primarily designed to test the readiness of the armed forces, and it is quite possible that this is indeed their main goal this time, but one important side effect of such activity is to overwhelm the surveillance capabilities of the US/NATO by basically putting up so much activity on the US/NATO monitoring screens that something important could be easily hidden.  What exactly?

Well, the preparations from some kind of military move, of course.  Though I personally do not believe that Russia will move into the Donbass at this point.  Also, this kind of activity could be used to increase covert aid and even covert intervention.  Another option is to use this kind of "noise" to change the disposition of Russian forces.  Whatever may be the case, we can be pretty sure that the Russians are trying to give the US/NATO somewhat of a headache and to make them wonder what exactly Russia is up to.

The Saker