Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register

The Vostok exercises are set to begin on August 30 The Ministry of Defense emphasizes that the war in Ukraine will not affect them Business as usual signal despite Russian losses

LONDON, July 26 (Reuters) – Russia plans to hold strategic military exercises in the east of the country from next month, the defense ministry said on Tuesday, thousands of miles from the war in Ukraine. The “Vostok” (East) exercises will take place from August 30 to September 5. They seem intended to send a message that Russia, despite its five-month-long costly war in Ukraine, remains focused on defending its entire territory and capable, in military terms, of maintaining “business as usual.” But that may be a challenge given Moscow’s heavy losses in men and equipment in Ukraine – including troops and material being sent there from the eastern military region where the war games will take place. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register “Many troops and equipment from the eastern MD (military district) have already been deployed, rotated, lost and killed in Ukraine since February, so it will be interesting to see what they can salvage,” said Mathieu Boulegue, a military expert. at the Chatham House think-tank in London. In a statement, the defense ministry stressed that its ability to hold such exercises is not affected by what it calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine. He said that Russia has not canceled any training activities or international cooperation and that the exercises will be provided with all necessary personnel, weapons and equipment. “We draw your attention to the fact that only a part of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is involved in the special military operation (in Ukraine), the number of which is quite sufficient to fulfill all the tasks set by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief,” stated in the announcement. CIA Director William Burns said last week that the United States estimated that 15,000 Russian soldiers had been killed in Ukraine since February – as many deaths as the Soviet military had in a decade of war in Afghanistan since 1979 – and three times as many who may have they have been injured. . The Eastern Military District includes part of Siberia and is headquartered in Khabarovsk, near the Chinese border. The exercises will involve some foreign forces, the defense ministry said, without specifying from which countries. The previous Vostok exercises in 2018 were held on a massive scale with nearly 300,000 troops reported to have taken part, including for the first time from the Chinese military. Whether and to what extent China will participate this year will provide important clues about the state of bilateral relations as Putin attempts to court Beijing at a time of heightened standoff between Russia and the West. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Report by Mark Trevelyan. Editing: Nick Macfie, Angus MacSwan and Jonathan Oatis Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.