Putin Exaggerated Troops Involved In Military Show Of Strength By Almost 5 Times, UK Says

Vladimir Putin has hugely “misrepresented” the size of his latest show of military strength, according to the UK.

The Russian president held his annual Joint Strategic Exercise – known as Zapad-2025 – earlier this week with Belarus.

Many in Europe were concerned in the run-up to the event that Putin would use it as an excuse to make more aggressive moves across the continent, having used a similar pretext to justify his invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Putin publicly called those claims “hysteria”.

And, according to the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD), this year’s display was actually much smaller than the Russian leader had claimed it was going to be.

The MoD said: “Fewer land troops and armoured vehicles were likely involved than in previous Russian annual exercises because of Russia’s heavy commitment to its illegal invasion of Ukraine.”

It continued: “Russian President Putin’s statement that over 100,000 service personnel participated probably misrepresents the effective scale of the exercise.

“It is likely that no more than 10,000 Russian land forces troops took part in Moscow and Leningrad Military Districts, including Kaliningrad.

“In Belarus, about 6,000 troops took part, about 5,000 Belarusian and 1,000 Russian, reduced from its earlier announced 13,000 troops.”

If those numbers are correct, the military exercise involved 22,000 troops rather than 100,000 as promised.

It’s not too surprising – Putin does not exactly have soldiers to spare right now. 

While Russia has been making incremental progress on the frontline in Ukraine, it has become a war of attrition having accrued more than a million casualties since its invasion back in 2022.

Russia has also been accused of violating Estonia’s airspace after sending three fighter jets into the country for 12 minutes this week.

Italy, Finland and Sweden then scrambled jets under Nato’s mission to support its eastern flank and drove the Russian warplanes out.

Russia has denied that it violated Estonian airspace, while Estonia has requested to activate Nato’s Article 4 consultations.