In a major decision amid the ongoing military stand-off with China in Eastern Ladakh and Aksai Chin, India has now pulled out of the multi-nation war game exercise in Russia to be held next month because of Chinese, Pakistani as well as Turkish troops are being slated to take part in the combat drills. China has formally accepted the Russian invite.
“It has been decided that it would be incorrect for our troops to take part in an exercise where People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers will also be present, even if it is a multilateral drill,” said a senior defence officer on Saturday. “PLA soldiers, after all, crossed all red-lines by brutally attacking our soldiers in the premeditated attack in Galwan Valley on June 15 (20 Indian and an undisclosed number of Chinese soldiers estimated at around 45 to 50 soldiers were killed in the skirmish). It cannot be business as usual with the PLA,” he added.
Indian Army Troops Engaged In An Exercise.The decision to withdraw from the 'Kavkaz 2020’ counter-terrorism and “strategic command-post exercise”, to be held in Astrakhan region of South Russia from September 15 to 27, was taken after meetings attended by defence minister Rajnath Singh, external affairs minister S Jaishankar, chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat and Army Chief General M M Naravane on Friday.
The Kavkaz exercise will have about 13,000 military personnel from at least 19 countries, including Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) members. India and Pakistan in 2017 became full members of SCO, which was initially constituted by Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in 2001.
“Russia has now been told of our withdrawal from the exercise. The raging Covid pandemic was also another concern,” said another officer. Rajnath Singh, however, will attend the defence ministers’ meeting of the SCO in Russia next week, but he too is “highly unlikely” to hold a bilateral meeting with his Chinese counterpart General Wei Fenghe. MEA S. Jaishankar, in turn, is slated to visit Moscow for the SCO foreign ministers’ meeting on September 10.
“There is no change in the ground situation in eastern Ladakh despite several rounds of diplomatic and military talks,” said the officer. China has so far remained intransigent about completing troop disengagement in Pangong Tso and Gogra as well as reducing its military build-up in the strategically-located Depsang-Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO) sector.
The PLA, instead, continues to furiously build its military infrastructure along the Line of Actual Control since its troops tried to intrude into Indian territory at multiple points in eastern Ladakh in early-May. The infrastructure ranges from building roads, lateral links, bridges and helipads in several sectors close to the LAC to laying optical fibre cables for its troops at the face-off sites in Pangong Tso and Gogra-Hot Springs, while also augmenting its airbases at Hotan and Kashgar in Xinjiang as well as Gargunsa, Lhasa-Gonggar and Shigatse in Tibet. India, of course, has matched the PLA troop build-up and deployment of tanks, artillery, surface-to-air missile batteries and other heavy weaponry in all the three sectors of the 3,488-km LAC stretching from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh.
“In addition to the over 30,000 troops in eastern Ladakh alone, we have also deployed Akash air defence and BrahMos precision-strike supersonic cruise missile systems, apart from other systems, at different places along the LAC,” said an officer.
The exercise Kavkaz is being held in Astrakhan region of Southern Russia from 15-27 September 2020. The military exercise is part of a four year exercise cycle of the Russian army and the name is based on the region where these exercises are held.
The expected presence in the exercise of troops from South Ossetia and Abkhazia, both states that aren’t recognised by India, in Kavkaz-2020 was also a factor in the decision, said one of the officials. Most UN member states see Abkhazia and South Ossetia as part of Georgia, though both are recognised by Russia. India doesn’t recognise both as independent states as they are not members of the UN. India’s presence at such as an exercise could have given rise to delicate diplomatic issues, a second official said.
New Delhi was extended an invitation to send a tri-services contingent to the exercise. India was earlier planning to send around 180 troops from an infantry battalion along with elements of the air force and observers from the Indian Navy for the exercise.