A tank painted to participate in armored car races. /
Despite the invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has organized the ‘International Army Games’, a military competition in which countries such as Iran, China, Algeria, Venezuela or Vietnam participate
The so-called war Olympics are a competition between soldiers from countries close to Moscow’s orbit organized by the Russian Ministry of Defense and that are being held despite the invasion of Ukraine and international sanctions of all kinds that weigh on the Government of Putin. After all, countries like China, Iran, Venezuela, Vietnam, Syria or Algeria, among others, participate in the so-called ‘International Army Games’. That is, NATO rivals and, especially, enemies of the United States. Its celebration is already a diplomatic victory for the Russians, with which they can demonstrate that the isolation to which the West wants to subject them has failed.
However, the propaganda content of this event collapsed last week in one of the tests of this war championship: the tank biathlon. In the real Olympics, this test unites cross-country skiing with precision shooting. In these war games, the test consists of driving armored cars at full speed and stopping to shoot at fixed targets, all of which is broadcast with video game static on Russian government Internet channels. In the competition between South Ossetia and Zimbabwe, the Russian-made vehicle used by the first country lost control and the turret began to point at the public and the African competitors without being able to do anything to stop the barrel’s rotation.
sport diplomacy
It was a blow to the image of Russian industry, since all countries – except China, which comes with its own material – compete with the T72B3, one of Moscow’s best tanks. This battle tank is the one used in the majority in the invasion of Ukraine and, after seeing the images of the botched, many experts understood why the Russian crews abandon these vehicles in the Ukrainian fields en masse. But in addition, President Putin, at the opening of the event, had assured that they were going to demonstrate that Russian technology is “far ahead of its foreign analogues.”
The ‘International Army Games’ were born in 2015 at the initiative of the Russian Ministry of Defense and became a publicity weapon for an army that has just been deployed in Syria, in the first Russian intervention outside its country after the end of the ‘war cold’. This military competition was intended to be one more diplomatic gesture in the new Russian geopolitical strategy, which sought to regain lost influence and become a military power to be reckoned with after defeats such as the one suffered in Afghanistan or Chechnya. Countries like China or Iran have become regulars in this strange Olympics that includes amphibious landings or the clearing of mined land, but also competitions that simulate combat in an area bombed with an atomic bomb or toxic gases. France or Germany, members of NATO, came to intervene as observers, but in the face of Russian hostility in Ukraine they abandoned this Olympics. Spain has never participated.
Russian nationalism
Some of the tests that make up the war Olympics are dedicated to historical Russian generals or are named after mountains of the Federation
The tests that make up the different military events take place in different countries, so that this year a sniper competition will be held in Venezuela, a country in which troops from the participating countries will meet. In the case of Algeria, soldiers from all the participating States will meet in the city of Blida for a parachuting competition. The tests have a strong Russian nationalist component. Thus, the event dedicated to armored personnel carriers is called ‘the Suvorov onslaught’, alluding to a 17th-century Russian general with a reputation for invincibility. The climbing test is ‘Elbrus’, referring to the mount of the same name, the highest in Russia and Europe, with 5,642 meters. Some of the competitions are really weird. In one of them, called ‘Field Kitchen’, military chefs have to prepare a typical dish from their country and, at the same time, also test their accuracy in shooting. There are also displays of regional dances or fighting dogs.
This year, the war in Ukraine is present in an advertising way. Russia has lost thousands of men in the war – 45,000 according to Ukrainian sources – but British or American material seized from kyiv troops is on display at various posts set up on the outskirts of Moscow. In addition, Moscow has added a test – baptized as the ‘Ukrainian element’ – dedicated to firing at helicopters from a tank in tribute to several soldiers who, in the invasion of kyiv, managed to shoot down two aircraft from an armored car.