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International desk: Russia on Tuesday will launch the biggest military drills in its history involving 300,000 troops as well as Chinese soldiers, in a move NATO denounced as “exercising large-scale conflict”.<\/p>\nInternational desk: Russia on Tuesday will launch the biggest military drills in its history involving 300,000 troops as well as Chinese soldiers, in a move NATO denounced as “exercising large-scale conflict”.<\/p>\n
The week-long deployment alongside Chinese and Mongolian armies dubbed “Vostok-2018” (East-2018) will start in eastern Siberia on September 11, reports AFP.<\/p>\n
It comes at a time of escalating tensions between Moscow and the West over accusations of Russian interference in western affairs and the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Syria.<\/p>\n
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” (West-81) — the largest military exercises of the Soviet era.<\/p>\n
But defence minister Sergei Shoigu said this time would be even larger, with 300,000 soldiers, 36,000 military vehicles, 1,000 planes and 80 warships taking part in the drills.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
The Russian army will roll 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.<\/p>\n
At sea, the Russian fleet will deploy several frigates equipped with Kalibr missiles that have been used in Syria.<\/p>\n
Russia's previous military exercise in the region, Vostok-2014, was almost half the size, with 155,000 soldiers participating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
International desk: Russia on Tuesday will launch the biggest military drills in its history involving 300,000 troops as well as Chinese soldiers, in a move NATO denounced as “exercising large-scale conflict”. The week-long deployment alongside Chinese and Mongolian armies dubbed “Vostok-2018” (East-2018) will start in eastern Siberia on September 11, reports AFP. It comes at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":47213,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,14],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\t\n