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Russian President Vladimir Putin is hosting his Chinese counterpart at an economic forum in the far eastern port of Vladivostok today as armed forces from both countries goes down on eastern Siberia to launch Moscow's largest-ever military drills.
Russia's week-long deployment alongside Chinese and Mongolian troops, known as "Vostok-2018" (East-2018), comes at a time of heightened tensions between Moscow and the West over charges of Russian interference in Western affairs and ongoing conflicts in Ukraine Syria.
Comparing this week's show of force to the Soviet Union's 1981 war games during which between 100,000 and 150,000 Warsaw Pact soldiers took part in "Zapad-81" (West-81) -the largest military exercises of the Soviet era-Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said these exercises will be larger, with 300,000 soldiers, 36,000 military vehicles, 1,000 planes and 80 warships taking part in the drills.
China's participation in the quadrennial war games, while comparatively modest with only 3,200 men and 900 weapons units, is also unprecedented, leading to a lack of warning to the United States and Europe.
"It sends a signal to Washington that the US continues on its current course by pressuring Russia and imposing more sanctions," said Alexander Gabuev of the United States. Carnegie Institute in Moscow recently told The Associated Press, adding that Beijing's participation indicates that Russia and
Other experts, however, disagree, questioning both the transparency of Vostok-2018 troop estimates and the political significance of China's inaugural participation.
"Numbers and figures for these kinds of exercises are typically what they are supposed to be, in which they are statistically related to the Russian Army's General Staff. Michael Kofman, Russia and Eurasia security and defense analyst at the Washington-based Kennan Institute.
"This is a brigade, but they count the whole brigade," he told VOA. "So these numbers are not entirely fictional, but you have to divide them by a substantial amount to get any sense of how big the exercise actually is."
"And they typically revise the numbers after the fact," Kofman added. "For example, originally after Vostok 2014, they said that they had 100,000 participants, and then I guess they were not impressive enough, because they posted more than 155,000."
Different methodologies for calculating troop numbers
Jeffrey Edmonds of Arlington-based CNA Analysts said, "It's very hard to tell beforehand just how big these exercises are going to be." To form Russia's director for the National Security Council and CIA military analyst, Edmonds told reporters that they could only be deployed uniformly.
"It could also be, you know, 'Is this one that's operating along the Western front actually part of the operation in the East?' Maybe it is, maybe it is not, so, different people can come up with different figures. "
The purpose of the drills-like weekend-long, however, is unambiguous. Like other NATO officials who have denounced Vostok-2018 as an "exercise in large-scale conflict," multiple experts described the event as a first-of-its-kind rehearsal for a post-Cold War global confrontation.
"The point of the exercise is really to test Russia's ability to conduct a large-scale conflict, and one that may involve a nuclear component," Kofman told VOA. "It's also designed to stress-testing the entire political-military-military-in-the-field of mobilization, dealing with reservoirs and assessing how civilian-military authorities would react to a large-scale conventional war."
Despite the seemingly more imminent risk of conflict across eastern Europe-Baltic nations have been on high alert since Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea, and some 2,200 Ukrainian, American and NATO troops conducted drills in western Ukraine-the Russian military's Achilles Heel, geographically speaking , lies to the far east.
"The far east is unique compared to the other [Russian] Because it is so distant from Russian infrastructure and population centers, "said Kofman," who is the most likely to be a victim? " training. "
"That's another part of this exercise," he said. "It can be argued that this is another possibility for a large-scale conflict or horizontal escalation against Russia," he said. "What is happening in Europe, the majority of U.S. power projection and most of America's strongest allies are in the Asia-Pacific region."
And, Russia and China have increased military-to-military contact in recent years, and in the United States, in the United States.
"Russia has no chance of a formal military alliance with China," said Moscow-based military analyst Aleksander Goltz. "This China can not be helped by any military alliance and commitments" And while Beijing may be ready to develop some cooperation with Russia, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization "-an economic and security pact between China, Russia , Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan- "it is only in very limited ways defined by Beijing parameters."
Edmonds described Vostok-2018 as part of Russia's ongoing efforts to modernize its forces.
"Maybe the announcements of how big it's going to be to hostilities with the West, but the actual exercise is a pretty standard Russian military activity."
Kofman, too, suggests China's action has less to do with emerging geopolitical dynamics than with regional necessities.
"If you're going to do large-scale military exercises like this in the far east, especially when considering Russia's set strategy of trying to form a balancing act with China on the basis of mutual antagonism towards and shared security concerns about the United States, the only logical course of action is to invite the Chinese to participate in this exercise, "Kofman told VOA. "Otherwise, [China would] would inherently view this exercise as having to do with them, or at least they would be suspicious. "
"Another part of it, of course, is that they are signaling to the United States that their cooperation is not only growing with their respective bilateral problems in their respective relationships with the United States. definitely not in America's interest, "he added. "So, the joint military exercises are not necessarily necessary, but they are incremental steps, so it is important to view them in aggregate."
Which is to say, he suggests, the longer term of the Russian-Chinese cooperation may reveal more than the drills themselves.
"Over time, an agreement between these two countries could be more likely to become a reality than not."
Wire news outlets have reported that Vostok-2018 will see Russian forces field Su-34 and Su-35 fighter planes, T-80s and T-90 tanks, and nuclear-capable Iskander missiles. At sea, the Russian fleet is expected to deploy several frigates equipped with Kalibr missiles that have been used in Syria.
Last week, Russia held military exercises in the Mediterranean, where more than 25 warships and some 30 planes took part in the drills, as Russia increased its military presence in Syria where it intervened to help the Bashar al-Assad regime in 2015.
Upon publication, NATO officials were still considering Moscow's invitation to send observers to the drills, which will wind down September 15.
The Russian president is scheduled to attend the drills after the Vladivostok forum, where Putin, President Xi Jinping and other regional leaders are expected to discuss North Korea.
This story originated in VOA's Russian Service. Yulia Savchenko contributed original reporting. Some information is from AP and Reuters.
