|
|
 |
Maneuvers to Outflank US
// The Shanghai Cooperation Organization launches military exercises
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) launches military exercises in Russia’s Chelyabinsk Region and China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region on Thursday. The maneuvers are designed to counter an uprising reminiscent of bloodshed in Uzbekistan in 2005 and aimed to show that Eurasia’s east has a powerful military and political alliance whose members are ready to close ranks in any situation. SCO leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin are to visit a training range in Chebarkul for the final stage of the drills.
The Peace Mission 2007 exercises get underway on Thursday to become the organization’s largest military drill. All member countries, Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, are sending its troops for the drills. The previous maneuvers took place in August 2005 in the Shandong Peninsula in China but involved only Russian and Chinese soldiers. Beijing organized the Shangdong exercises clearly with an eye back to the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan. Russia and China were to fight with imaginary extremists who were attempting to cease power in a neighboring country. The drills took place on the coast and looked like a landing onto a large island such as Taiwan.
Kommersant sources say that this time the exercises’ concept came from Russia. Deputy Prime Minister and then Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov was the first to voice the initiative last April in Beijing at a meeting of the SCO’s defense policy chiefs. Russian military drafted a plan for the maneuvers based on developments in Uzbekistan’s Andizhan in 2005 when authorities violently suppressed an opposition uprising. Officials say that the exercises would see a group of terrorists capturing a town with SCO forces, warplanes and artillery eliminating the insurgents and freeing the town. After that, Russia’s plenipotentiary officers will be arresting surviving terrorists. The exercises’ press center confirmed that drafters of the drills’ scenario largely relied on Andizhan developments.
The maneuvers are to begin with staff exercises in China’s Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region which has long been a battlefield between Chinese authorities and Uyghur separatists. China’s experience in Xinjiang underlay the organization’s declaration of a need to fight the so-called “three evils” – separatism, terrorism and extremism. The parties are going to discuss an action plan for the operation with Russian Colonel-General Vladimir Moltensky and his Chinese counterpart at the helm. The maneuvers will then move to the Chebarkul training range in Chelyabinsk Region where first SCO soldiers gathered on July 27.
Peace Mission 2007 will involve 4,700 soldiers of Russian 34th infantry division and 76th Air Force division, Mi-8, Mi-24 and Mi-28N helicopters and Su-25 fighters. 2,000 Russian soldiers are to take part in the drills with other backing the operation. China is sending 1,700 soldiers, G-9 and Mi-17 helicopters as well as G-7A fighters. Kazakhstan and Tajikistan are supplying air assault companies while Kyrgyzstan is sending an air assault platoon. Uzbekistan has not sent its soldiers but Uzbek officers will be taking part in staff exercises and organizing the maneuvers. The drills will involve more than 6,500 soldiers and 2,000 military hardware with Russia and China supplying the bulk of it. The drills’ organizers make no secret of the fact that Moscow and Beijing are dominating Peace Mission. The training camp is decorated with posters showing a firm handshake of Russian and Chinese flags. All signs in the camp are only in Russian and Chinese.
Russia took on almost all expenses on the maneuvers’ organization. The Russian Defense Ministry says they cost it more than 2 billion rubles. The money renovated Chebarkul, creating new and restoring old infrastructure. Chelyabinsk Region Governor Pyotr Sumin earmarked an additional 64 million rubles to these ends. The organizers were evidently anxious to please Chinese soldiers. Beijing’s military were greeted with a traditional bread and salt welcome ceremony and put up in four-bed rooms. All Chinese quarters have TV sets with Chinese channels and DVD players in them. The Russian Defense Minister built the biggest-ever press center in the Russian army to cover the exercises.
The generosity is no surprising. Peace Mission 2007 is essentially part of a plan to turn the SCO into a Central Asian military and political bloc to protect Russia’s interests and counter a growing influence of the United States in the region. The same task is to be voiced at the August 14 summit in Kyrgyzstan’s Bishkek which will bring together all SCO leaders. June meetings of SCO foreign and defense policy chiefs have shown that Moscow would seek support of its allies to counter Washington in issues ranging from the proposed U.S. missile shield in Eastern Europe to expelling the U.S. military base from the Manas airport in Kyrgyzstan. Vladimir Putin and his counterparts are to fly right from Bishkek to Chebarkul for the final stage of Peace Mission 2007 to demonstrate that the SCO has the resources and power to “fight against aggressive plans”.
Alexander Gabuev
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 09, 2007
|
|
|
