OTTAWA — Canadian troops in Latvia will have front-row seats to a massive Russian military exercise this month that has set NATO on edge and sparked calls for calm across eastern Europe. Scheduled to start Sept. 14 and run for a week, the so-called Zapad exercise is being billed as Russia’s largest war game since the end of the Cold War more than 25 years ago. Canada is leading one of those multinational brigades, with 450 troops based in Latvia alongside counterparts from fellow NATO members Albania, Spain, Italy, Poland, and Slovenia. “It’s not about exercises per se, or Exercise Zapad 2017,” Janzen said. Canada and Russia are among several dozen countries that have signed an international agreement that requires any military exercise involving more than 13,000 soldiers be open to outside observers.

Source: National Post September 01, 2017 16:17 UTC