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. ||||| FILE - In this file photo taken on Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2017 Russian soldiers compete during a team's run at the Army Scout Masters competition, part of Army Games, outside Novosibirsk, 2900 km (some 1800... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this file photo taken on Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2017 Russian soldiers compete during a team's run at the Army Scout Masters competition, part of Army Games, outside Novosibirsk, 2900 km (some 1800 miles) east of Moscow, Russia. The Russian military says major war games, the Zapad (West) 2017... (Associated Press) 
 
 MOSCOW (AP) — In a bid to dispel Western fears about planned war games by Russia and Belarus, the Russian military said Tuesday the maneuvers simulating a response to foreign-backed "extremists" won't threaten anyone. 
 
 The maneuvers, to be held Sept. 14-20 in Belarus and western Russia, have raised NATO concerns. Some alliance members, including the Baltic states and Poland, have criticized Moscow for a lack of transparency and questioned its intentions. 
 
 Amid spiraling tensions over fighting in Ukraine, Western worries about the planned maneuvers have ranged from allegations that Russia could keep its forces in Belarus after the drills, to fears of a surprise attack on the Baltics. 
 
 Russia's Deputy Defense Minister, Lt. Gen. Alexander Fomin, rejected what he described as Western "myths about the so-called Russian threat." 
 
 "The most improbable scenarios have been floated," he said at a briefing for foreign military attaches. "Some have reached as far as to claim that the Zapad 2017 exercises will serve as a 'platform for invasion' and 'occupation' of Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine." 
 
 Fomin said the Russian military will invite foreign observers to the maneuvers, which will involve 5,500 Russian and 7,200 Belarusian troops, about 70 aircraft, up to 250 tanks, 200 artillery systems and 10 navy ships. 
 
 Moscow's assurances, however, have failed to assuage Russia's neighbors, which expect the drills to be far greater in scope than officially declared. 
 
 Estonian Defense Minister Juri Luik said last month that Moscow could deploy up to 100,000 troops for the maneuvers. Poland's Deputy Defense Minister Michal Dworczyk also questioned Russia's official claims, saying that Warsaw expects many more Russian soldiers and equipment to be deployed. 
 
 Speaking Monday on Polish state Radio 1, Dworczyk expressed hope that the exercise "will not include any aggressive scenarios" and won't cause any incidents, adding that "operations on this scale always run this risk." 
 
 NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said last week that the alliance will send two observers to the maneuvers, but noted that access offered by Belarus does not constitute real monitoring. He said NATO is seeking "a more thorough way of observing" the drills. 
 
 NATO has rotated military units in the Baltics and Poland and held regular drills in the region — activities that Moscow has criticized as a reflection of its hostile intentions. 
 
 The alliance has watched Russian military moves with utmost concern following Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea and support for pro-Russian insurgents in eastern Ukraine. Russia had leased a naval base in Crimea prior to its seizure, and used troops deployed there to quickly overtake the Black Sea peninsula. 
 
 Speaking in Moscow, Fomin said next month's exercise will simulate a military response to foreign-backed extremist groups and aren't directed against anyone in particular. 
 
 "Despite the fact that the bulk of it will be held on the territory of Belarus, we had in mind an imaginary adversary unrelated to any specific region," he said. "According to our estimates, the situation envisaged in the maneuvers' scenario could develop in any part of the world." 
 
 Dworczyk, Poland's deputy defense minister, said Warsaw is particularly worried about the possibility that Russia could keep some of its forces in Belarus after the maneuvers. 
 
 "Obviously, this would negatively impact the region," he said. 
 
 Belarus has maintained close political, economic and military contacts with its giant eastern neighbor. Its authoritarian leader, President Alexander Lukashenko, has relied on cheap Russian oil and billions of dollars in loans to keep the nation's Soviet-style economy afloat. 
 
 But relations between the two allies often have been mired in disputes, as Lukashenko has accused the Kremlin of trying to strong-arm Belarus into surrendering control over its most-prized industrial assets. 
 
 Belarus hosts a Russian military early warning radar and a navy communications facility, but Lukashenko has resisted Kremlin pressure for hosting a Russian air base. Some in Belarus voiced fears that the base could provide a foothold for Moscow if it decides to annex its neighbor, like what happened in Crimea. 
 
 The flamboyant Belarusian leader has hailed bilateral military cooperation and criticized NATO's moves, but he has refused to recognize Crimea as part of Russia. He also failed to follow suit when Moscow acknowledged Georgia's breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states after a brief 2008 Russian-Georgian war. 
 
 Alexander Golts, a Moscow-based independent military analyst, said that while Moscow would certainly like to permanently station its forces in Belarus, Lukashenko will strongly oppose such a move because that could put his nation in cross-fire in case of a conflict between Russia and NATO. 
 
 "The possibility of a permanent Russian military deployment in Belarus appears unlikely," Golts said. 
 
 Alexander Klaskovsky, an independent political analyst in Minsk, agreed. 
 
 "Lukashenko is involved in a delicate balancing act, trying to show his loyalty to the Kremlin without damaging ties with the West," he said. 
 
 The chief of the Belarusian military's General Staff, Oleg Belokonev, pledged Tuesday that all Russian troops involved in the maneuvers will leave Belarus by the end of September. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Monika Scislowska in Warsaw and Yuras Karmanau in Minsk, Belarus, contributed to this report.
– 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.