Top commanders play down significance of major Russian-Chinese military manoeuvres

RUSSIA and China began unprecedented joint military exercises involving air, sea and land forces yesterday, as commanders from both nations insisted the war games weren’t meant to intimidate other countries.

The United States isn’t sending observers to the exercises, which symbolise the bolstered ties between Russia and China since the end of the Cold War, but the US has said it hopes they don’t shake regional stability.

“Our exercises don’t threaten any country,” General Yuri Baluyevsky, the head of the Russian armed forces general staff, told a news conference at Russia’s Pacific Fleet command in the Far East city of Vladivostok.