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https://www.janes.com/article/82648/rus ... 8-exercise
http://fortune.com/2018/08/29/russia-vo ... -exercise/Russian military TV Zvezda added that Shoigu said thousands of aircraft, helicopters, and unmanned aerial vehicles would be involved in the exercise.
Russian state news agency Tass reported on 29 August that the exercise would be conducted on 11-15 September in the Volga, Ural, and Siberian federal districts and 29 Russian regions.
Russia will hold its largest military exercise since the 1980s next month,
with 300,000 Russian troops and 1,000 aircraft,
NPR reports.
Chinese and Mongolian troops will also take part in the exercise,
known as Vostok-2018, or “East-2018.”
The five-day exercises on Russia’s eastern border are expected to start September 11.
Its location suggests the practice is meant to demonstrate closer ties with China,
The New York Times report.
“China was seen as the potential threat or target in exercises like Vostok,” Alexander Gabuev,
a China expert at the Carnegie Moscow Center, told the Times,
“but it is now being invited to join as a friend and even a quasi-ally.
This is really unprecedented.”
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu compared the Vostok-2018 practices
to those held during the Cold War when speaking to Russian media Tuesday.
“In some ways, they resemble the Zapad-81 drills,” said Shoigu,
referencing the 1981 exercise considered to be the country’s largest.
“But in other ways, they are, perhaps, even larger.”
