300,000 Troops, 900 Tanks: It’s Called the Most Massive Russian Military Exercise Since the Cold War, and China’s Role is Growing by Todd South – Military Times
Following last year’s massive Russian military exercise on the western border, the country is headed into the largest military drills in nearly four decades on its eastern flank.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced this week that the Vostok-2018 exercise from Sept. 11-15 would involve as many as 300,000 troops, 1,000 aircraft and 900 tanks with units from China and Mongolia also participating.
The drills will be “on an unprecedented scale both in terms of the area covered and in terms of the numbers,” Shoigu told Russian state media.
It will include all their military’s airborne units and both northern and Pacific naval fleets, he said.
“Imagine 36,000 pieces of military equipment moving together at the same time — tanks, armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles. And all of this, of course, in conditions as close to combat as possible,” he said, CBS News reported…