2023-04-17 10:05:49
Russia
Putin praises military maneuvers in the Pacific
The Russian president considered the surprise maneuvers initiated by his fleet in the Pacific to be “very high level”.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) and his Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu (left).
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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday praised “very high level” Russian maneuvers in the Pacific involving dozens of ships and planes, against a backdrop of rapprochement with Beijing and tensions with Westerners. “The first stage of these surprise exercises indeed took place at a very high level,” said Mr. Putin, during a meeting with his Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu. The drills announced last week, which come amid Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu’s visit to Russia, involve more than 25,000 troops, 167 ships and boats, including 12 submarines, and 89 aircraft. and helicopters, specified for his part Mr. Choïgou during this meeting. According to him, the Russian forces participating in the maneuvers were trained, during the first stage, in particular to detect enemy submarines in the vicinity of the Gulf of Peter the Great (in the Sea of Japan) and the Avachinsky Gulf, in the south-west. east of the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East.
The second stage, currently underway, includes maneuvers aimed at verifying the capabilities of strategic submarines and their ability to use weapons, in particular for anti-aircraft defense, in the Sea of Okhotsk, located between Russia and Japan in the Pacific,” the minister said. The third and final stage will begin on Tuesday. It will involve missile firing exercises supposed to destroy enemy submarines and ships and artillery fire against air and sea targets, according to the same source.
Clear priorities
“To date, we have clear priorities in the use of our armed forces, this is above all the Ukrainian component and everything related to the defense of our people in the Donbass”, in eastern Ukraine, said Vladimir Putin. “But no one canceled the tasks related to the development of the fleet, including in the Pacific,” he added.
Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu, who was received by Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin on Sunday, praised very strong ties between Moscow and Beijing “that go beyond the military-political alliances of the Cold War era.”
(AFP)
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