China's Ministry of National Defense is deploying approximately 3,200 troops, 900 weapons, and 30 aircraft and helicopters for the Vostok 2018, Russia's largest war games since the Cold War in 1985. Moscow rallied nearly 300,000 troops, over 1,000 aircraft, helicopters and drones, 36,000 tanks, and 80 warships and military vessels for the military drills.
Russia's General of the Army Valery Gerasimov said Vostok runs from Sept. 11 to 17 and has two stages. The first phase involves combat operations training for two days in the waters of the Sea of Okhotsk and the Bering Sea, Avacha, and Kronotsky Gulfs. The second phase and the most important part of the war games involve practice confrontation where the Chinese military and the Mongolian Armed Forces will battle with Russia's armies from its Central military district.
Vostok 2018 is aimed at testing the combat readiness and military capabilities of the three participating nations. There are tactical operations involved, robotics application, and deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles. The drill shall also test the maneuvering defense of all military personnel and arsenal, their capability to inflict damage to enemies, and accuracy of the army aviation.
In a statement, Russia's Ministry of Defense highlighted that Vostok 2018 is being conducted without any particular country or enemy as a target. The drill is also defensive in nature, the ministry said.
Elsewhere, political observers and defense experts have differing opinions about the Vostok 2018, particularly on the fact that China is participating.
Alexander Gabuev, chair of Russia in the Asia-Pacific Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center, noted that Russia had considered China as potential threats in the past decades. Now, that they are working together, they are now perceived as allies against common aggressors, Gabuev explained to the Financial Times.
Florence Cahill, a senior analyst at a political risk consultancy firm, said Beijing and Moscow's closer ties demonstrate that trade wars and sanctions imposed upon them are only pushing them to strengthen their alliances.
For others, the joining together of China and Russia in the war games with such magnitude is a showcase of their military might.
Jack Watling, a research fellow at London's Royal United Services Institute, told NBC News that Vostok 2018 is an attempt by both nations to prove that they can carry out military exercises at a scale that NATO has not achieved.
NATO and Russia have had tense relations since Moscow's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea in 2014. NATO has since perceived Russia's move as a direct provocation against its member states that it beefed up its military forces in Eastern Europe to deter potential Russian military invasion.
Vostok is taking place on the heels of the NATO war games in Russia's border in the Baltic States and Poland in June. The military drills, headed by the United States, took place in June and was participated by 18,000 troops from 19 NATO country members.
Mikhail Barabanov, editor-in-chief of the Moscow Defense Brief, believed Vostok 2018 is an opportunity for both Russia and China to assess each other's military preparedness. He said Moscow is interested in seeing how Beijing military has evolved through modern times given that the country has not fought since 1979.
China, for its part, may want to see the latest in military technology and advanced jet engines which Russia possessed, Watling said.
Know Hyuk-Chul, a security expert at Kookmin University in Seoul, thinks China's participation in the drills will make the United States uneasy and this could impact the denuclearization efforts being worked out together by Beijing and Washington on the Korean peninsula.
