Russia to hold its biggest war games since the Cold War
China and Mongolia, too.
NATO claimed that joint Russian-Byelorussian exercises held last year could have been seen as preparations for war:
MOSCOW -- Russia will next month hold its biggest war games since at least the 1980s, with around 300,000 troops and 1,000 aircraft, the defence minister said Tuesday. The Vostok-2018 exercises will be carried out from September 11 to 15 in the country's east with the participation of China and Mongolia.
China and Mongolia, too.
NATO claimed that joint Russian-Byelorussian exercises held last year could have been seen as preparations for war:
Moscow said last year's Zapad-2017 military drills, conducted in ally Belarus and regions of Russia, saw the participation of roughly 12,700 troops. But NATO claimed Russia could have been massively underreporting the scale of those exercises, which some of the alliance's eastern members said involved more than 100,000 servicemen.
The head of NATO's military committee said those war games could have been seen as "a serious preparation for a big war," despite Russian assurances they posed no threat.
Just days after Russia ended the Zapad-2017 exercises, thousands of Polish and other NATO troops launched major defensive exercises in Poland's north.