Russia held a large military exercise involving China and India as President Vladimir Putin pushed back US and its allies to isolate it due to the Ukraine invasion.
More than 50,000 troops and 5,000 military equipment, including more than 140 aircraft and 60 warships, will take part in the Vostok-2022 war game for a week starting Thursday in the Far East Russia, including Navy training in the Ocean of Japan.
Regular training unites member countries and partners of Shanghai cooperation organizations and collective security agreements led by Russia from the former Soviet Republic.
Even when the US seduced India as a defense partner and urged her not to damage international sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine, the New Delhi government sent a 75-streak small military detachment to army training. They include gurkha troops and representatives from the Navy and Air Force, although India did not send naval or air assets to Russia.
India, who previously attended the exercise, had avoided the side of the Russian war in Ukraine, in part because of its dependence on Moscow as a supplier of its main weapons in the midst of continuous border tension with neighboring China and Pakistan. However, South Asians voted against Russia about this issue for the first time in the procedural vote last week on the UN Security Council that allowed Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to talk to the body through video links.
India has also put aside the steps to jointly produce a helicopter and postpone other plans to buy around 30 fighters from Russia.
The Ministry of Defense in Beijing said that Chinese army, air and Navy troops took part in training, which aimed to strengthen military coordination. The Global Times supported by the Chinese Communist Party said this year’s training would focus on possible threats, especially from the US in the Pacific region.
China has refused to criticize Russia because of the Ukraine invasion for six months and condemned US and European sanctions against Moscow. But it has been away from Putin by providing military technology and supply for Russian war efforts due to the risk of US secondary sanctions.
The role of China in the exercise “cannot be seen as support” for Russia for the conflict, said V Astery Kashin, a Russian military expert at Moscow High Economic School. “It only shows us that military-to-military bonds take place as usual.”
Russian Allies Belarus also took part in the Vostok-2022 along with the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan, Kirgistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Tajkistan and other countries including Syria, Algeria, Mongolia, Laos and Nicaragua.
