Russia is planning the biggest military exercise since the 1980’s

A Russian team's tank moves at speed during tank's biathlon competition in Alabino, outside Moscow, Russia, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018. The competition called the International Army Games involves troops from Russia and several other nations. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

In September, Russia will hold the largest military exercise since the Cold War. Approximately 300,000 soldiers and 1,000 aircraft will participate the Ministry of Defence reported.

 

Exercise Vostok-2018 will last from the 11th to the 15th of September and will take place in eastern Russia, in cooperation with China and Mongolia.

“This will be a kind of repeat of Zapad-81, but in some contexts will be even greater,” said Russian Defence Minister, Sergey Sjoigu,referring to an extensive exercise held in Eastern Europe in 1981.

‘’Imagine 36,000 military vehicles manoeuvring at the same time, tanks,armoured personnel vehicles, large-scale carriages. All of course under conditions as close as possible to battle,” said Sjoigu.

The exercise will be greater than last year’s Zapad-2017, which took place both in Russian and Belarusian territory. According to Moscow, around 12,700 soldiers participated.

However, NATO believes that Russia has underestimated the size of this exercise, as some of the Alliance’s Eastern Member States will mean more than 100,000 troops being involved.

 

© NTB scanpix / #Norway Today