Denys Monastyrsky, Ukraine’s internal affairs minister, told journalists that security forces were using the Chernobyl exercises to demonstrate how far they have come in urban combat tactics since Russia annexed Crimea and pro-Russian separatists seized a swathe of eastern Ukraine nearly eight years ago.
“All these scenarios are taken and summarized from the cases that have occurred since 2014,” Monastyrsky said.
The spectacle, however, is also an attempt by Kyiv to match the glitzy propaganda effort coming out of Moscow.
On the diplomatic front, Russia has repeatedly accused NATO of being the party responsible for the crisis, arguing the alliance’s eastward expansion poses an existential threat. Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, is pumping out propaganda videos worthy of a Hollywood production, with tank columns driving at maximum speed across the frozen steppe and ground-attack fighters swooping into bases in southern Belarus.
The exact nature of Russia’s threat to Ukraine remains unclear and a point of contention.
Ukrainian officials have spent much of the past few weeks playing down the US estimation that a Russian invasion could be “imminent,” concerned that the dire language was causing panic and destabilizing the economy.
“We have the same facts, but the different perception, or a different estimation,” Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov told CNN after watching the exercises in Chernobyl.
The White House is no longer calling a potential invasion “imminent” due to concerns, they say, that the term suggests Putin has already made a decision to invade Ukraine.
Nonetheless, Ukraine admits that Russia’s military buildup in Belarus is worrying.
‘Only a fool would start a war’
War is far from the minds of many Ukrainians who live near the border where Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia meet.
“They’ve been saying ‘a war is coming’ for five years now,” said one man who asked not to be named.
“Only a fool would start a war,” he said. “There won’t be any winners.”
At the Three Sisters Cafe, named for the three former Soviet republics, 64-year-old Masha pours espresso in paper cups for the weary drivers who wander in.
Truck after truck is waiting to cross into Russia. Some are stuck for days, slowed by Covid restrictions. They have few options but to wait and sip a hot drink from the cafe.
Masha is convinced: No war is coming here.
“It ain’t gonna happen,” she yells, waving her hand in the air. “Will Putin go to war with civilians? He won’t do that. Never in his life. It’s all lies, politics. We don’t even think about it.”
She works in the cafe, she says, to supplement her pension, which is the equivalent of about $77 a month. She is less concerned with the geopolitical games being played by world leaders than the hardships of everyday life.
“If I could, I would have the Parliament dissolved,” she said. “They should have given the people proper pensions. So that people won’t be beggars, paupers.”
Peter Vujcic, a Serb truck driver old enough to remember war in his own country, is also unconcerned.
Vujcic spoke to CNN while on his way to the Serbian capital, Belgrade, shortly after crossing Belarus’ border with Russia. He said he’s seen military hardware coming back and forth in the Belarus, but he’s not worried about it.
“Everything will be fine,” he said with a smile, leaning out of his cab window.
