Russia Launches Biggest Ever Military Exercise

Russia begins ‘war games’ by parading the largest nuclear-capable missiles involving 300,000 troops which is more than double the number in the entire British armed forces. It also involved 36,000 tanks, and 1,000 planes, plus 80 ships and support vessels and 3,500 Chinese troops.
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, is expected to attend the exercises after hosting an economic forum in Vladivostok where his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, is a guest and sent huge troops with armoured vehicles and aircraft. This show of force is condemned by Nato as a rehearsal for large-scale conflict.
The week-long exercise, known as Vostok-2018 (East-2018) “have kicked off” in far-eastern Russia, the defence ministry said on Tuesday.
The Russian defence ministry released video footage of military vehicles, planes, helicopters and ships getting into position for the initial stage of the drills.
Putin talked up Russia’s increasingly close ties with China as he met Xi in Vladivostok on Tuesday. “We have trustworthy ties in political, security and defence spheres,” the Russian leader said.
Xi said the two countries’ friendship was “getting stronger all the time”.
The military exercises come amid escalating tensions between Moscow and the west over accusations of Russian interference in western affairs and conflicts in Ukraine and Syria.
But Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said “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,”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the drills were justified given “aggressive and unfriendly” attitudes towards Russia.
>Juthy Saha