Posted Wednesday, 26 Mar 2014 by Pavel K. Baev
As the “polite green men” were taking control over the Crimea, another unit of Russian paratroopers landed on the Kotelny island, as TASS proudly reported. More extensive coverage of that high-risk exercise is here. An article in Nezavisimaya argued that “penetration of Greenpeaceniks and radical Islamists is a grave threat to the Russian Arctic“. This sort of fatuity wouldn’t deserve a comment if official Russian discourse were not catching up with it extra-fast – and if other exercises were not replaying the Cold War games.