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MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia on Tuesday began its first war games near the border with China, mobilizing 300,000 men in a show of force involving joint exercises with the Chinese army.
FILE PHOTO: A member of the Special Operations Unit of Russia holds up a national flag during the military exercise organized by the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in Almaty, Kazakhstan, May 22, 2018. REUTERS / Shamil Zhumatov / File Photo
China and Russia have already organized joint but not large-scale exercises, and Exercise Vostok-2018 (East-2018) bears witness to closer military ties and reminds Beijing that Moscow is capable and ready to defend its rights. populated far east.
Vostok-2018 is taking place at a time of heightened tension between the West and Russia, and NATO said it would closely follow the exercise, as will the United States , which have a strong military presence in the Asia-Pacific region.
The Russian Ministry of Defense released on Tuesday images of military trucks being transported in moving trains, tank columns, armored vehicles and warships, as well as combat helicopters and fighter jets.
This activity was part of the first stage of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 17, the ministry said in a statement. It involved deploying additional forces to the far east of Russia and strengthening the naval capabilities of its northern and Pacific fleets.
The main objective was to verify that the army was ready to move troops over great distances, to test the cooperation between the infantry and the navy and to perfect the command and control procedures. Subsequent steps will involve repetitions of defensive and offensive scenarios.
Russia also held a major naval drill in the eastern Mediterranean this month and its planes resumed bombardment of the Syrian region of Idlib, the last large enclave of rebels fighting its ally President Bashar al-Assad.
NEAREST CHINA-RUSSIA
The location of the main Vostok-2018 training field 5,000 km east of Moscow means that it will be closely monitored by Japan, North and South Korea, China and Mongolia. . in maneuvers later this week.
Analysts say Moscow had to invite the Chinese and Mongolian armed forces because of the proximity of the war games to their borders and because this scale meant that neighboring countries would probably have considered them a threat if they had been excluded.
By chance or by chance, 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 meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the Russian port city of Vladivostok.
Relations between Moscow and Beijing have long been marked by a mutual mistrust of Russian nationalists warning of the influence of Chinese influence in the far east of the country, rich in minerals.
But Russia swung eastward to China after the West sanctioned Moscow for its annexation of Ukrainian Crimea in 2014 and as trade relations between the two countries, sharing a land border of more than 4,200 km, have developed since.
Russia said 24 helicopters and six Chinese-owned planes have moved to Russian air bases for the exercise. Beijing said 3,200 members of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) will attend the meeting.
Some experts see the war games as a message to Washington, with which Moscow and Beijing have strained their ties.
"With its exercise Vostok 2018, Russia sends the message that it considers the United States as a potential enemy and China as a potential ally," wrote Dmitry Trenin, former Russian army colonel and director of the think tank. Carnegie Moscow Center.
"China, by sending an element of the PLA to train with the Russians, reports that pressure from the United States is pushing for a much closer military cooperation with Moscow."
Putin, who is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, is expected to observe the exercises this week alongside Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who is overseeing them.
Shoigu said that they were the most important since a Soviet military exercise, Zapad-81 (West-81) in 1981.
