RUSSIA and China began joint naval manoeuvres off the coast of Vladivostok today, as US-led exercises in the Pacific drew to a close.

The deployment is designed to test interoperability between the two countries’ navies, and includes mixed warship missions and training in submarine warfare.

Beijing and Moscow said the exercises are defensive in nature and do not target any third party, but they will be seen as a warning of military readiness with Operation Talisman Sabre — formally a US-Australia exercise but one which this year involved 35,000 troops from 19 countries, including Britain — concluding several weeks of manoeuvres tomorrow.

Those too denied targeting anyone, but British Defence Secretary John Healey raised tensions when aboard the HMS Prince of Wales aircraft carrier as it prepared for the exercises in Darwin, Australia, by stating that Britain was ready to fight China over the island of Taiwan, despite it being recognised by the British government as Chinese territory.

Tension between Russia and the United States also rose over the weekend, with US President Donald Trump announcing he was moving nuclear submarines to “appropriate regions” following a spat with Russia’s Security Council deputy chairman Dmitri Medvedev.  

Mr Medvedev, a former president of Russia, had called a US threat to impose sanctions if a peace deal isn’t reached with Ukraine “a step towards war.”

Though depicted during his 2008-12 presidency — during which Russia’s current President Vladimir Putin, who had already served as president from 2000-08, was prime minister — as more liberal than his predecessor, Mr Medvedev has since the invasion of Ukraine become the most vocally hawkish member of the Russian government. His provocative online rhetoric often goes beyond Moscow’s official war aims, having included threats to fight to the Polish border and descriptions of the Ukrainian nation as a “cancerous growth” on Russia.

Despite Mr Trump’s sanctions threats, there was no abating in the Ukraine war over the weekend, with Russia reporting a huge fire at an oil depot in Sochi following Ukrainian drone attacks and Ukraine reporting Russian drone strikes in eight locations. Last week was an unusually deadly one for Ukraine, with one Russian bombardment on Thursday killing 31 people.