Page 633 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo I

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mittee of Defense Ministers (20 October 1983 in Moscow), and two sessions of the Military
Council in Sofia and Prague in May and November (the first one discussed especially the
evaluation of NATO REFORGER exercise). The proposed meeting of MI chiefs was finally
summoned on 2 February 1984 in Moscow; however, the discussion continued for less than
a day. In his report about the meeting the chief of Bulgarian MI service Col.-Gen. Zikulov
was perplexed that there was no left any time for discussion after the detailed summary of the
GRU chief, Gen. Petr Ivashutin. The Soviet report several times stressed on the “increasing
nuclear threat” after disposition of US missiles in Western Europe, considered as “nuclear
means for first stroke”. Gen. Ivashutin especially underlined: “Today grows up the probabil-
ity and threat of aggression from NATO on the cover of organization of larger exercises and
maneuvers… The principal task of our MI services continues to be: in due warning about
the immediate preparation of USA and NATO for nuclear attack, particularly, for a surprise
25
start of nuclear war.” The MI chiefs’ meeting agreed on preparation of a special expert
session in January 1985 in Sofia for evaluation of the results of AUTUMN FORGE-83 and
AUTUMN FORGE-84, and for coordination of the joint measures on reconnaissance of next
WINTEX-85.
On 19 July 1987 the Chief of Bulgarian General Staff issued a “Battle Order” in regard
to the reconnaissance of the next AUTUMN FORGE-87 fall exercises. The General Staff
order focused its attention especially on DISPLAY DETERMINATION-87 exercise in the
Mediterranean basin, scheduled for September-October 1987. The document defined 25 dif-
ferent concrete tasks to the MI units and obliged their commanders to report each day at 3
p.m. about the actual situation and the changes of the local environment. An analytical sum-
26
marized report had to be delivered in two weeks after the end of the NATO exercise .
On 8-11 December 1987 a multilateral Warsaw Pact MI session was held in East Berlin.
The discussion was devoted particularly on the results of the inspections of the announced
NATO exercises in 1986-1987 in accordance with the Final Act of the Stockholm conference
on confidence building and disarmament (19 September 1986). The leading conclusion of the
MI session stressed on a significant decrease of the announced NATO exercises (from 30 in
1986 to 17 in 1987 and to 14 for the next 1988), which was caused mostly by the decrease of
the participated troops’ number (less than 13 000 in each one exercise). The session in East
Berlin clarified as well the “distribution of goals and targets” among the Warsaw Pact MI ser-
vices: the GDR should organize reconnaissance over the local exercises in the FRG, Belgium
and the Netherlands, the Poland – in Great Britain and Denmark, while the Soviet GRU – in
the USA (CARAVAN GUARD, TEAM WORK, and CERTAIN CHALLENGE which in fact
was the code name of REFORGER-88 field exercise). Bulgarian MI service was responsi-
27
ble for reconnaissance of the ACTIVE EDGE exercise in Southern European War Theater .
28
The last meetings of MI chiefs before the dissolving the Warsaw Pact military structures
on 25 February 1991 were carried out in May 1989 in Warsaw and in June 1990 in Bucharest.

25 Ibid., p. 84-85.
26 COMDOS, VR, MF I-1551, A.E. 1550, p. 102-108.
27 For the first time in many years the next REFORGER-89 exercise was not held due to some observations by
the West German government; it was actually postponed for 1990.
28 COMDOS, VR, MF I-1551, A.E. 1550, p. 232-236.