Russia launches biggest ever war games
CHITA (Russia): Russia yesterday launched what it has called its largest ever military drills, with hundreds of thousands of troops taking part along with Chinese soldiers in a massive show of force that has rattled the West.
The week-long war games dubbed “Vostok-2018” (East2018), “have kicked off” in far eastern Russia and on the Pacific Ocean, the Defence Ministry said.
It released video footage of military vehicles, planes, helicopters and ships getting into position for the initial stage of the drills.
The drills, which include the Chinese and Mongolian armies, have been condemned by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as a rehearsal for “largescale conflict”.
President Vladimir Putin is expected to attend Vostok-2018 after hosting an economic forum in Russia’s far eastern city Vladivostok, where his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping is one of the prominent guests.
The military exercises come at a time of escalating tensions between Moscow and the West over accusations of Russian interference in western affairs and conflicts in Ukraine and Syria.
The Russian army compared the show of force to the USSR’s 1981 war games that saw between 100,000 and 150,000 Warsaw Pact soldiers take part in “Zapad81” (West-81) — the largest military exercises of the Soviet era.
But Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said these exercises were even larger, with 300,000 soldiers, 36,000 military vehicles, 1,000 planes and 80 warships taking part in the drills.