The reason for such a small showing at this year’s Joint Sea exercise is straightforward, says 
 
 Maxim Shepovalenko, a former Russian navy captain and expert at the Moscow-based Center for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST), said the small Russian showing was because there was "no need for a large-scale exercise" in the Baltic, "merely a symbolic one". 
 
 "I can’t imagine the Russian navy ever holding a large-scale naval drill even by itself. And for the Chinese Navy, this is just a way to get a taste for ‘global reach,’” Mr Shepovalenko said. 
 
 The exercise will run the course of a week, and will feature anti-submarine, anti-aircraft, and anti-ship drills. The two sides will also practice anti-piracy as well as search and rescue operations. The joint flotilla is under the command of Russian Vice Admiral Alexander Fedotenkov and Chinese Vice-Admiral Tian Zhong. 
 
 The drills are being conducted in Russian, according to the Baltic Fleet’s press service. 
 
 China has been expanding its military reach by building up its naval forces and establishing its first overseas military base in the tiny east African nation of Djibouti this year. 
 
 The manoeuvres in the Baltic Sea are being seen by Chinese experts as a show of force following joint drills by the United States and Beijing's two key Asian rivals - India and Japan – in the Indian Ocean earlier this month. ||||| BERLIN (Reuters) - U.S. allies in eastern Europe and Ukraine are worried that Russia’s planned war games in September could be a “Trojan horse” aimed at leaving behind military equipment brought into Belarus, the U.S. Army’s top general in Europe said on Thursday. 
 
 Russia has sought to reassure NATO that the military exercises will respect international limits on size, but NATO and U.S. official remain wary about their scale and scope. 
 
 U.S. Army Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, who heads U.S. Army forces in Europe, told Reuters in an interview that allied officials would keep a close eye on military equipment brought in to Belarus for the Zapad 2017 exercise, and whether it was removed later. 
 
 “People are worried, this is a Trojan horse. They say, ‘We’re just doing an exercise,’ and then all of a sudden they’ve moved all these people and capabilities somewhere,” he said. 
 
 Hodges said he had no indications that Russia had any such plans, but said greater openness by Moscow about the extent of its war games would help reassure countries in eastern Europe. 
 
 A senior Russian diplomat strongly rejected allegations that Moscow could leave military equipment in Belarus. 
 
 “This artificial buffoonery over the routine Zapad-2017 exercises is aimed at justifying the sharp intensification of the NATO bloc (activities) along the perimeter of Russian territory,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin told the Interfax news agency on Friday. 
 
 NATO allies are nervous because previous large-scale Russian exercises employed special forces training, longer-range missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles. 
 
 Such tactics were later used in Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine and in its intervention in Syria, NATO diplomats say. 
 
 Hodges said the United States and its allies had been very open about a number of military exercises taking place across eastern Europe this summer involving up to 40,000 troops, but it remained unclear if Moscow would adhere to a Cold War-era treaty known as the Vienna document, which requires observers for large-scale exercises involving more than 13,000 troops. 
 
 Some NATO allies believe the Russian exercise could number more than 100,000 troops and involve nuclear weapons training, the biggest such exercise since 2013. 
 
 Russia has said it would invite observers if the exercise exceeded 13,000 forces. 
 
 U.S Army Europe Commanding General Ben Hodges speaks during the inauguration ceremony of bilateral military training between U.S. and Polish troops in Zagan, Poland, January 30, 2017. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel 
 
 Hodges said NATO would maintain normal rotations during the Russian war game, while carrying out previously scheduled exercises in Sweden, Poland and Ukraine. 
 
 The only additional action planned during that period was a six-week deployment of three companies of 120 paratroopers each to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for “low-level” exercises, Hodges said. 
 
 “We want to avoid anything that looks like a provocation. This is not going to be the ‘Sharks’ and the ‘Jets’ out on the streets,” Hodges said in a reference to the gang fights shown in the 1961 film “West Side Story” set in New York City.
– Russia is staging war games in Belarus in September, but US officials and US allies in the area are concerned the country's real aim is to bring military equipment into the country and leave it there. "People are worried this is a Trojan horse. They say, 'We're just doing an exercise,' and then all of a sudden they've moved all these people and capabilities somewhere," the head of US Army forces in Europe tells Reuters. He says NATO officials will be watching the Zapad 2017 exercise closely for that reason. Some allies think the exercise will involve nuclear weapons training and could utilize more than 100,000 troops, which would make it the largest such exercise since 2013, the Guardian reports. The official did note that there are no indications Russia really is planning such a "trojan horse," but called for more transparency from the country as to the size and scope of the war games in order to ease concerns. A senior Russian diplomat says Moscow has no plans to leave military equipment in Belarus, and says the concern from NATO is just "artificial buffoonery" over routine war games that is "aimed at justifying the sharp intensification of the NATO bloc (activities) along the perimeter of Russian territory." NATO is also keeping a close eye on war games in the Baltic Sea taking place July 24-31; Chinese warships were to join the Russian navy there Friday.