Russian minister compares UK army with Nazi Germany

MOSCOW: Russia’s defence minister on Thursday accused the British army of using Russian insignia to designate the enemy during training, a method he said was employed by Nazi Germany during World War II.

Minister Sergei Shoigu said that British troops at the Salisbury Plain training facility “have started to use Russian-made tanks and uniforms of the Russian military to designate the enemy”.

“The last time this training method was used was by Nazi Germany during the Second World War,” Shoigu said, according to a transcript published on the defence ministry’s website.

He added that Nato had doubled the intensity of its military exercises and that the majority of its drills were “anti-Russian”.

“Nato has declared Russia a main threat and continues to build up its military potential at our borders,” he said.

Relations between Nato and Russia have soured since Moscow annexed the Crimea peninsula of Ukraine in March 2014, and eastern European countries are worried that they too could be targets of Russian aggression.

Nato vowed at a summit in Warsaw in July to bolster its eastern flank to counter a resurgent Russia, agreeing to deploy four battalions in Poland and the Baltic states.