Russian ‘300,000 soldier’ war games start

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 in a statement.

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 Chi n e s e a n d Mongol i a n armies, have been condemned by NATO as a rehearsal for “large-scale conflict”.

President Vladimir Putin is expected to attend Vostok2018 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 ongoing conflicts i n Ukraine and Syria.

The Russian army has 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 “Zapad-81” ( West81) – the largest military exercises of the Soviet era.

Latest hardware

But Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said these exercises are even larger, with 300,000 soldiers, 36,000 military vehicles, 1,000 planes and 80 warships taking part in the drills.

“Imagine 36,000 military vehicles moving at the same time: tanks, armoured personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles – and all of this, of course, in conditions as close to a combat situation as possible,” Shoigu said.

The Russian army is rolling out all of its latest additions for the event: Iskander missiles that can carry nuclear warheads, T-80 and T-90 tanks and its recent Su-34 and Su-35 fighter planes.

At sea, the Russian fleet is deploying several fr igates equipped with Kalibr missiles that have been used in Syria.

Wednesday will see games featuring anti-aircra f t technolog y, while the main event w i l l be on T hu r s day, t he defence minist r y told jou rnalists covering t he event in eastern Siberia.

NATO said that the Vostok2018 drill “demonstrates Russia’s focus on exercising largescale conflict”.

“It fits into a pattern we have seen over some time – a more assertive Russia, significantly increasing its defence budget and its military presence,” the alliance’s spokesman Dylan White said late August.