{"id":1304782,"date":"2025-10-11T15:25:53","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T12:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/germany-trained-the-russian-army-in-modern-tactics-before-the-annexation-of-crimea-what-is-known-about-this\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T15:25:53","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T12:25:53","slug":"germany-trained-the-russian-army-in-modern-tactics-before-the-annexation-of-crimea-what-is-known-about-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/germany-trained-the-russian-army-in-modern-tactics-before-the-annexation-of-crimea-what-is-known-about-this\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany trained the Russian army in modern tactics before the annexation of Crimea: what is known about this"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three years before the annexation of Crimea, Germany was training the Russian army in modern combat tactics and planned to create a network of combat training centers on Russian territory. Cooperation between Berlin and Moscow began in 2011 and was worth about one billion euros, but was stopped after the start of Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is reported by Spiegel<\/a> .<\/p>\n

According to journalists, there was a large-scale military cooperation program between Germany and Russia, launched back in 2011, which involved training Russian military personnel in modern combat methods and creating eight state-of-the-art training centers on the territory of the Russian Federation. The project was implemented in partnership with the German arms concern Rheinmetall and had a total cost of about one billion euros.<\/p>\n

The idea of establishing military ties with Germany arose in Vladimir Putin’s mind after the 2008 Russo-Georgian war, when the Russian army demonstrated low combat readiness and suffered losses due to poor tactical training. After that, Moscow decided to conduct a deep modernization of its armed forces and turned to Berlin for help.<\/p>\n

The then German government, led by Chancellor Angela Merkel, welcomed the Kremlin’s offer. As retired General Josef Niebecker said, “the German political directive was to welcome Russia’s desire for cooperation and – as far as possible – to implement it.”<\/p>\n

German Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere publicly stated in 2011 that he was “very pleased with the intensity of our relations” and that Berlin was “interested in security policy in a modern, well-managed Russian army.”<\/p>\n

Moscow\u2019s main partner was Rheinmetall, which was tasked with building a combat training center in Mulino, on the Volga River\u2014one of the Russian army\u2019s key bases. The center was to become a model training ground for Russian troops, training up to 30,000 soldiers a year.<\/p>\n

According to the plan, Germany was to help build eight such facilities by 2020 \u2014 one for each Russian military district. The contract for the first center was estimated at 135 million euros, and the total volume of the agreements was about a billion.<\/p>\n

In addition to technical equipment, the Germans supplied special equipment for simulating combat conditions – for example, pyrotechnic simulation systems that recreated explosions during exercises. Project participants from both sides regularly made mutual visits: German military personnel inspected facilities in Moulins, and Russian delegations visited the Rheinmetall plant in the city of Unterl\u00fcss.<\/p>\n

The cooperation even included the idea of an exchange of officers. A Russian military officer was to be sent to the German army command in Strausberg, and a Bundeswehr officer would be given a job at the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces. Berlin hoped that such interaction would create “trust that ensures peace.”<\/p>\n

Joint exercises were also planned at the Kamyanka training ground in the Leningrad region, involving 60 German soldiers and six Boxer armored vehicles. However, these exercises, postponed to 2014, never took place due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

After the start of the Russian aggression against Ukraine, the German Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control revoked all previously issued export licenses for Rheinmetall on June 10, 2014. Supplies to Russia were suspended due to the risk of German technology being used in war.<\/p>\n

Despite this, the company initially tried to keep the contract, arguing that the supplies posed no threat, since they were \u201cnot weapons, but training systems.\u201d Rheinmetall even demanded compensation of 120 million euros from the government, but later abandoned its claims.<\/p>\n

After the annexation of Crimea, Berlin completely stopped military cooperation with Moscow. Since then, the only permitted form of “interaction” between the two countries has been the reburial of World War II soldiers.<\/p>\n

Russia, meanwhile, independently completed the training ground in Moulineau, which was later used for the Zapad exercises, maneuvers directed against NATO countries. Many German officials and military personnel who participated in the project are now horrified by the possible consequences. They admit that if cooperation had not been terminated in 2014, Russia’s current war against Ukraine could have been even more devastating.<\/p>\n

Also follow \u201cPryamim\u201d<\/strong> on Facebook<\/a> , Twitter<\/a> , Telegram<\/a> , and Instagram.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three years before the annexation of Crimea, Germany was training the Russian army in modern combat tactics and planned to create a network of combat training centers on Russian territory. Cooperation between Berlin and Moscow began in 2011 and was worth about one billion euros, but was stopped after the start of Russian aggression against […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":193327,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76870,76871,76872,76875],"class_list":["post-1304782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","category-news-2","category-news-feed","category-other-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1304782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1304782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1304782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}