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Russia’s southern military district said on Thursday that the country’s fleet would participate in exercise Aman 2021 off the coast of Pakistan in February.
A total of 30 countries will participate in the exercise; 10 of them will send their warships and the rest will send observers.
Participating states include Russia, Pakistan, China and Japan, Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported, citing a statement from the Black Sea Fleet, which will represent Russia in the training.
The maneuvers will also be joined by the NATO-owned fleets of the United Kingdom, the United States and Turkey, according to the report.
For the last time, the Russian navy trained with various NATO members during Exercise Bold Monarch off the coast of Spain in 2011.
However, the Russian navy has been conducting joint maneuvers with Turkey for the past decade, with which Moscow maintains closer relations than with the rest of NATO.
NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu told AFP that the Alliance itself “has no plans to conduct training with Russia.”
Relations between Russia and NATO have been strained in recent years, and the US-led military alliance has frozen relations with Moscow following the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
In September, Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff of the Russian army, accused NATO of concentrating forces on the Russian border.
In a report released earlier this month, the Alliance highlighted that Moscow is likely to remain a major threat to the security of NATO members for the next decade.
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