Putin Goes Hollywood

From Defense News:

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday ordered unscheduled military exercises involving thousands of troops and dozens of ships in the Black Sea region to test their battle readiness, the Kremlin said.

The order was presented to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in a sealed envelope at 4 a.m. (2400 GMT), his spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told Russian news agencies, adding that the exercises would involve 36 ships and up to 7,000 troops.

Peskov indicated that the surprise order by Putin was aimed at testing the battle readiness of the Russian armed forces and said Moscow was not obliged to warn its partners of the plan.

“Today at 4 a.m. the president of the Russian Federation and supreme military commander (Putin) gave the order to the defense minister to begin major military exercises in the Black Sea region,” Peskov said. “We are talking about major exercises, intended as a check.”

Maybe Marko Ramius is trying to defect? Or maybe Putin is answering the call for BRIC nation assistance by Cyprus. The Black Helicopter crowd is going to have a field day with news like this.

My only question is: what would Connor Stark do?