“Of course they are offended.” How Russia upset Ireland with military maneuvers
The strategic importance of the Irish Sea, located between Ireland and Great Britain, lies in its collection for inter-island communication and coastal navigation between Great Britain.
“We do not have the ability to prevent research, but I made it clear that this is not welcome. Now there is no increase in military activity and tension,” Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said during a meeting of the EU Council in Brussels.
According to him, Moscow notified Dublin of its intention to conduct exercises. Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that in January and the meeting of the Russian Navy, it would conduct a series of scientific studies.
It is noted that the maneuvers were met in accordance with the waiting plan of the Russian Armed Forces for 2022. The Russian military department also said that certain exercises are taking place in the waters of the Mediterranean, North and Okhotsk seas, as well as in the northeastern part of the Atlantic Ocean and in the Pacific Ocean.
“The main focus of the exercises is to work out the obligations of the forces of the Navy and the Aerospace Forces to protect national interests in the world’s oceans, as well as to counter Russia’s military threats with maritime and oceanic interests,”
– the statement of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation says.
Earlier, Russian Ambassador to Dublin Yuri Filatov said that the Irish authorities have “not the slightest reason” to be concerned about Russian Navy scientists in the northeast Atlantic Ocean. He noted that these are mandatory and limited-scale maneuvers. “I think that the story of Russian naval exercises in the Atlantic is very much inflated. We are talking about a fairly regular, usual process of preliminary preparation,” Filatov said.
“Ireland is dissatisfied with the exercises of the Russian Navy, because they are taking place in the field of economic surveillance, this is unpleasant for them. Ireland has nothing to do with it – it is not even a member of NATO and it has a zero army, it is very sad about it, ”said Alexander Khramchikhin, deputy director of the Institute for Global Analysis and Analysis of Problems.
The expert noted that “there is no first year of exchange of idiocy regarding who will attack whom – Russia is hysterical about training in NATO, the West – about Russian scientists.” “The fact that they can be considered as such, if someone wants to consider them as such, then, of course, they can be considered effective. This is already the desire of the opposite side, everything is more than relative in terms of determining the nature of any scientists,” Khramchikhin said.
The former commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Vladimir Komoyedov, told Gazeta.Ru that some of the exercises are due to dispersion, and not to the military. “How much they are needed right now is a political question, in such exercises there is more politics than military-political necessity. As for the dissatisfaction of other countries involved in public exercises, it would be strange if they approved of them,” Komoyedov said.
According to military expert Dmitry Litovkin, Russia is going to conduct exercises in the Irish Sea, nothing is happening, as it has notified Ireland about this and “has the right to conduct whatever it wants in neutral waters.” “NATO countries, for example, are conducting exercises in the Barents Sea – Norway recently warned that it would conduct exercises there in March,” the expert said.
Military political scientist, associate professor at the RANEPA Valery Volkov believes that the exercises in the Atlantic were a response to NATO exercises in Norway.
“Ireland has become because of the maneuvers in Norway. Of course they are offended. The country is not even a member of NATO, but in fact you have to pay for Brussels. Against the background of other Western countries, Dublin did not aggravate Russia too much. Threats of some kind of these exercises do not arise, but it is always unpleasant when other people are training nearby. Moreover, the purpose of training has nothing to do with Ireland.
The Atlantic is a strategic zone of the USA research. And in this way Russia defiantly sends a signal to Washington. Ireland just became an accidental victim of these alignments, ”Volkov summed up.