China's People's Liberation Army will participate in military drills with Russian armed forces in Russia's far east, the Chinese ministry of defense announced on Wednesday.
The PLA will soon allocate and dispatch a portion of the soldiers to Russia to participate in the Vostok-2022 exercises, the Chinese Defense Ministry said in a statement. "According to the annual plan of cooperation between the armed forces of the two countries and the agreements of the parties."
Due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and potential Chinese action against Taiwan, the Vostok exercises are a chance for China and Russia to work together militarily.
The drills will involve "13 training grounds of the Eastern Military District, and they will also be attended by personnel of airborne forces, long-range and military transport aviation, as well as foreign military," according to the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Since the 1990s, China has been a consistent buyer of Russian military hardware, accounting for 25–50% of all Russian military sales abroad.
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Russian accusations that China has stolen intellectual property in the past have occasionally strained relations between the two nations, but despite these disagreements, the two nations have grown closer and the joint military drills have persisted.
Although this military exercise is a part of the yearly bilateral training cycle between China and Russia, strategic intelligence expert Rebekah Koffler told Fox News Digital that it is noteworthy that Putin chose to keep to the schedule despite the fact that his forces were engaged in a live conflict in Ukraine.
According to Koffler, a former DIA intelligence officer, "the alliance between Russia and China, under the leadership of fellow authoritarians Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, has been getting ever closer since Russia's invasion of Ukraine."
"As U.S.-China tensions over Taiwan rise, both Russia and China see the U.S. as their main foe and are posing to counter U.S. power projection in the East," she said.