US Navy on Alert: China-Russia to Launch Largest-ever Joint Navy Exercise
The Chinese and Russian navies are gearing up for their largest-ever joint exercises, slated to begin Thursday in the Pacific with more than 20 ships and featuring anti-submarine operations as well as a joint-beach landing.
The “Joint Sea 2015 II” exercises will run through Aug. 28 in the Sea of Japan and off the coast of Vladivostok.
While analysts say the operations have increased in size and sophistications during recent years, the Chinese and Russian navies have held five such joint exercises over the past decade.
But in the current round of exercises, Chinese frigates have reportedly made their first-ever visit to the Russian Novorossiysk naval base in the Black Sea.
President Vladimir Putin made headlines in the area Tuesday by joining a Russian navy team aboard a small vessel that plunged into the Black Sea along the coast of the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine last year.
The U.S. Naval Institute’s online news and analysis portal, USNI, said Tuesday that the coming China-Russia exercises will be the second series of joint drills in less than a year.
The first “Joint Sea 2015” operation played out in the Mediterranean Sea in April. The USNI report noted that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said late last year that the U.S. was a factor motivating increased China-Russia military training.
However, more recent comments by other top Russian officials suggest Moscow is generally in line — rhetorically at least — with U.S. calls for multilateral solutions to any territorial disputes in hotly disputed waters of the South China Sea, where Beijing has angered other countries in the region with aggressive sovereignty claims in recent months.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/18/china-russia-to-launch-largest-ever-joint-navy-exe/