This week, Russia kicked off its Vostok-18 military exercises, drills that defense officials claim involve some 300,000 troops, 36,000 tanks, 1,000 aircraft, and scores of warships and have touted as "unprecedented in scale."
That's roughly a third of the entire Russia military, much of which would have to be moved to the far east to participate in these large-scale maneuvers, Business Insider wrote.
This year's version of the Vostok, or East, exercise is billed as the largest ever, topping the 1981 Zapad, or West, military exercise, which took place in the Baltic Sea area and Eastern Europe amid heightened tension with the U.S. after President Ronald Reagan took office.
Vostok is a no doubt a major undertaking for Russia's armed forces – and a major geopolitical development, given the inclusion of Chinese forces for the first time – but there are a number of reasons to believe Moscow is overstating the forces it has mustered.
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The logistical challenges of moving that many personnel and their equipment cast doubt on the stated numbers.
The 300,000 troops Russian officials have said would participate would be roughly one-third of the country's military. Gathering such a force would be a considerable financial challenge in light of Russia's decreasing defense spending and its standing military commitments elsewhere, according to The Diplomat. By comparison, that force would represent roughly two-thirds of the much better funded and equipped active-duty U.S. Army.
A conservative estimate of the vehicles in the Central and Eastern military districts is around 7,000 to 10,000. Bringing in roughly 25,000 more vehicles would clog railways and highways, and shuttling in that many troops would likely overwhelm Russia's military logistics structure.
The size of the force involved is likely around 50,000 to 100,000, according to The Diplomat. Other estimates put it around 150,000 – about the size of the Vostok-81 exercise – which is still very massive force.
Inflating the number of military personnel involved in such exercises is nothing new for Russia. And there appear to be a number of types of legerdemain through which Russian officials carry it out.
The stated total – 297,000, to be precise – likely includes all units stationed in the Central and Eastern military districts, as well as those in the Northern and Eastern Fleets and in the airborne units that are taking part.
"For every battalion fielded they will likely count the entire brigade, and for a few regiments an entire division, etc.," writes Michael Kofman, a Russian military expert at CNA and the Wilson Center.
Many of those are involved may not ever venture into the field, instead remaining at command posts. (The U.S. has also counted geographically dispersed units as taking part in certain exercises, but typically at much smaller scales.)
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Participation may go beyond uniformed troops and include civilian reserves, Jeffrey Edmonds, a former Russia director for the National Security Council, told Voice of America.
Edmonds noted that other units, like those operating in western Russia, may be included in some tallies.
Moscow has also likely counted under-strength units at full strength and included units that have been alerted or are indirectly involved – like those that are taking over assignments from units that are redeploying to actually take part, according to The Diplomat.
The figures presented by Moscow for these kinds of exercises could be called "true lies," Kofman told Voice of America, "in that they're statistical lies whereby the Russian army's General Staff tallies every single unit-formation that either sends somebody to the exercise or has some tangential command component in it."
"So these numbers are not entirely fictional, but you have to divide them by a substantial amount to get any sense of how big the exercise actually is," Kofman added.
Such sleight of hand is not new – similar tactics were used during the Cold War – and using them now may also be meant to avoid adding to anger over reduced social spending and proposed hikes to pension-eligibility ages.
Russia faces economic and demographic challenges, and, as noted by Mark Galeotti, a Russia expert and fellow at the European University Institute, the government spends an outsize portion of its federal budget on security.
Overstating the number of forces involved also likely serves broader geopolitical purposes.
Over the past decade and a half, President Vladimir Putin has turned a weakened military into a capable force, but the Russian leader is aware that his country lags in objective measures of strength, Galeotti notes at The Atlantic.
"Instead, [Putin] relies on bluff and bluster, theater and shadow play," Galeotti writes. "He wants to project an image of a dangerous yet confident country, one that should be placated, not challenged."
China's inclusion may also indicate a shift in Moscow's thinking.
Previous iterations of the Vostok exercise were meant to send a message to Beijing, which Moscow long viewed as a rival. The relatively small Chinese contingent taking part this year has been interpreted as a message to the West that Russia is not isolated and could further embrace China.
Many doubt a formal military alliance between China and Russia is in the offing, instead seeing their cooperation on Vostok – they have carried out joint military exercises elsewhere – as an effort by both sides to balance against U.S. and by Russia to allay Chinese concerns about the target of the exercises.
"Maybe the announcements of how big it's going to be is a reaction to hostilities with the West, but the actual exercise itself is a pretty standard Russian military activity," Edmonds, now a research scientist at CNA, told Voice of America.
