Russia, China plan battle drill

MOSCOW — Russia and China will hold an unprecedented joint military exercise this month, using long-range bombers and submarines to settle an imaginary conflict in a foreign land, a top Russian general said yesterday.

The Aug. 18-25 maneuvers, to be held on China's Shandong Peninsula, highlight budding military ties between Moscow and Beijing, whose relations have warmed after decades of Cold War-era rivalry.

The two nations insisted that the exercise, the first such drill, was not aimed at any third country.

The Chinese Defense Ministry said yesterday the exercises were meant to "strengthen the capability of the two armed forces in jointly striking international terrorism, extremism and separatism."

But the Russian military added that another goal was to practice joint action to "settle regional crises."

Col. Gen. Vladimir Moltenskoi, the deputy chief of Russia's Land Forces in charge of the exercise, said the drills envisage action to separate parties in a conflict in a third country with the backing of the United Nations.

Under the scenario, the Shandong Peninsula, which juts into the Yellow Sea about 275 miles southeast of Beijing, poses as an imaginary state "on the territory of which riots stemming from ethnic discord took place and confrontation between different forces occurred," Moltenskoi said.

He said the exercise plan had no relation to Taiwan, or any other specific country.

Moltenskoi said that about 10,000 troops, 1,800 of them Russian, will take part in the exercise. Russia will also field a navy squadron and 17 long-haul aircraft.

The two militaries will practice airborne and marine landing missions during the drills.