Russia to hold huge war drill with China

RUSSIA will next month hold its biggest war games in nearly four decades, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said yesterday, a massive military exercise that will also involve the Chinese and Mongolian armies.

The exercise, called Vostok2018 (East-2018), will take place in central and eastern Russian military districts and involve almost 300,000 troops, more than 1,000 military aircraft, two of Russia’s naval fleets and all its airborne units, Shoigu said in a statement.

The maneuvers will take place at a time of heightened tension between the West and Russia, which is concerned about what it says is an unjustified build-up of the NATO military alliance on its western flank.

NATO says it has beefed up its forces in eastern Europe to deter potential Russian military action.

Shoigu said the war games, which will take place on September 11-15, would be the biggest since a Soviet military exercise, Zapad-81 (West-81) in 1981.

“In some ways they will repeat aspects of Zapad-81, but in other ways the scale will be bigger,” Shoigu said, while visiting the Russian region of Khakassia.

The Russian Ministry

of Defense has said that Chinese and Mongolian military units will also take part in the exercise.

When asked if the cost of holding such a massive military exercise was justified at a time when Russia is faced with higher social spending demands, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said such war games were essential.

“The country’s ability to defend itself in the current international situation, which is often aggressive and unfriendly toward our country, means (the exercise) is justified,” Peskov told reporters on a conference call.

When asked if China’s involvement meant Moscow and Beijing were moving toward an alliance, Peskov said it showed that the two allies were cooperating in all areas.

China will dispatch about 3,200 troops, along with more than 900 pieces of weaponry, to take part in live-fire strikes and counterattack training, China’s Ministry of National Defense announced last week.

China and Russia have taken part in joint military drills before but not on such a large scale.

NATO spokesman Dylan White said that Russia had briefed the alliance on the planned exercise in May and that NATO planned to monitor it.

Russia had invited military attaches from NATO countries based in Moscow to observe the war games, an offer he said was under consideration.

“All nations have the right to exercise their armed forces, but it is essential that this is done in a transparent and predictable manner,” White said in an e-mailed statement.

Shoigu this month announced the start of snap combat readiness checks in central and eastern military districts ahead of the planned exercise.

“Imagine 36,000 armored vehicles — tanks, armored personnel carriers and armored infantry vehicles — moving and working simultaneously, and that all this, naturally, is being tested in conditions as close as possible to military ones,” the Russian minister said yesterday.