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Russia kicks off biggest war games since cold war; 3,200 Chinese troops to take part in Vostok-2018 drills.
Russia yesterday launched its largest military exercises since the Cold War, war games that will also involve thousands of Chinese troops in a show of burgeoning military ties between Moscow and Beijing amid spiralling tensions with the West.
Moscow said the Vostok-2018 manoeuvres will span vast expanses of Siberia and the Far East and involve nearly 300,000 Russian troops, more than 1,000 aircraft, about 36,000 tanks and other military vehicles and 80 warships.
China is sending about 3,200 troops, 900 combat vehicles and 30 aircraft to join the drills, a significant deployment that reflects its shift towards a full-fledged military alliance with Russia.
As the manoeuvres kicked off, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Russia yesterday to attend an economic forum in Vladivostok and held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Moscow and Beijing have forged what they described as a “strategic partnership,” expressing their shared opposition to the “unipolar” world, the term they use to describe perceived US global domination.
Russia began its biggest war games since the fall of the Soviet Union yesterday close to its border with China, mobilising 300,000 troops in a show of force that will include joint exercises with the Chinese army.
China and Russia have staged joint drills before but not on such a large scale, and the Vostok-2018 (East-2018) exercise signals closer military ties as well as sending an unspoken reminder to Beijing that Moscow is able and ready to defend its sparsely populated Far East.
Vostok-2018 is taking place at a time of heightened tension between the West and Russia, and Nato has said it will monitor the exercise closely, as will the United States which has a strong military presence in the Asia-Pacific region.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence broadcast images yesterday of military trucks being transported on trains, columns of tanks, armoured vehicles and warships on the move, and combat helicopters and fighter aircraft taking off.
This activity was part of the first stage of the exercise, which runs until September 17, the ministry said in a statement.
Offensive scenarios
It involved deploying additional forces to Russia’s Far East and a naval build-up involving its Northern and Pacific fleets.
The main aim was to check the military’s readiness to move troops large distances, to test how closely infantry and naval forces cooperated, and to perfect command and control procedures.
Later stages will involve rehearsals of both defensive and offensive scenarios.
Russia also staged a major naval exercise in the eastern Mediterranean this month and its jets resumed bombing the Syrian region of Idlib, the last major enclave of rebels fighting its ally President Bashar alAssad.
The location of the main training range for Vostok-2018 5,000 kilometres east of Moscow means it is likely to be watched closely by Japan, North and South Korea as well as by China and Mongolia, both of whose armies will take part in the manoeuvres later this week.
Putin in talks with Xi
Analysts say Moscow had to invite the Chinese and Mongolian militaries given the proximity of the war games to their borders and because the scale meant the neighbouring countries would probably have seen them as a threat had they been excluded.
By chance or design, the exercise — which will involve more than 1,000 military aircraft, two Russian naval fleets and all Russian airborne units — is taking place while President Vladimir Putin holds talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the Russian port city of Vladivostok.
Relations between Moscow and Beijing have long been marked by mutual wariness with Russian nationalists warning of encroaching Chinese influence in the country’s mineral-rich Far East.