MANILA: The US and Philippine militaries launched major exercises Monday aimed at fighting global terrorism, while staying mostly quiet on Beijing’s reported installation of missiles in the disputed South China Sea.
The annual maneuvers are the second to be held under Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who has set aside long-simmering friction over competing claims to the waters in order to court Chinese trade and investment.
The 12-day exercises began less than a week after US network CNBC reported that the Chinese military had over the past month installed anti-ship and air-to-air defenses on islands also claimed by the Philippines.
“This exercise was scheduled whether those missiles were there or not,” US Lt. Gen. Lawrence Nicholson told reporters in Manila.
“The exercises really have very little to do with recent developments in the area,” said Nicholson, the US director of the “Balikatan” (“shoulder-to-shoulder“) maneuvers.
The South China Sea issue has been brewing for years, with Vietnam, Malaysia and others also staking claims to waters with vital global shipping routes and what are believed to be significant oil and natural gas deposits.
Nicholson’s Filipino counterpart, Lt. General Emmanuel Salamat, sidestepped the issue while highlighting the need to improve the capabilities of Filipino forces to fight terrorism.
Duterte’s predecessor, Benigno Aquino, had used the exercises to boost the Philippine military’s capability to deter China, which claims most of the South China Sea.
Duterte refocused the joint exercises after he was elected in 2016, steering them toward addressing domestic problems.
Last year Balikatan focused mainly on honing humanitarian responses to the Philippines’ frequent natural disasters.
This year’s terror focus comes after Daesh group supporters seized the southern Philippine city of Marawi in May last year, triggering a five-month battle with US-backed Filipino troops that killed some 1,200 people.
“This is focusing mostly on countering terrorism ... that will allow us to respond to a similar scenario in the future,” Salamat said.
The US and Australia have pledged to provide more training and assistance to Filipino troops, who struggled in Marawi’s urban battleground after decades fighting low-intensity rural-based communist and Muslim insurgencies.
Most of the 5,000 Filipino troops and 3,000 US counterparts taking part in the maneuvers are from special operations units who will train in mock urban terrain to respond to “crises and calamities, either natural or man-made,” Salamat said.
Australia and Japan are also sending a total of 42 military observers to Balikatan, he added.
US-Philippine war games open under China-leaning Duterte
US-Philippine war games open under China-leaning Duterte
US and Mideast countries seek Kyiv’s drone expertise as Russia-Ukraine talks put on ice
KYIV, Ukraine: The United States and its allies in the Middle East are seeking Ukraine's expertise in countering Iran's Shahed drones, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Various countries, including the United States, have approached Ukraine for help in defending against the Iranian drones, Zelenskyy said late Wednesday. He said he has spoken in recent days with the leaders of the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait about possible cooperation.
Russia has fired tens of thousands of Shaheds at Ukraine since it invaded its neighbor just over four years ago, launching a swarm of more than 800 drones and decoys in its biggest nighttime barrage. Iran has responded to joint U.S.-Israeli strikes by launching the same type of drones at countries in the Middle East.
Ukrainian assistance in countering Iranian drones will be provided only if it does not weaken Ukraine's own defenses, and if it adds leverage to Kyiv's diplomatic efforts to stop the Russian invasion, according to the Ukrainian leader.
"We help to defend from war those who help us, Ukraine, bring a just end to the war" with Russia, Zelenskyy said. Later Thursday, Zelenskyy said he had received a U.S. request for support to defend against the drones in the Middle East and had given the order for equipment to be provided along with Ukrainian experts without providing further details.
"Ukraine helps partners who help our security and the protection of our people's lives," he added in a social media post.
Trump, in an interview Thursday with Reuters, said, "Certainly I'll take, you know, any assistance from any country."
Ukraine has battle-tested drone defenses
Ukraine has pioneered the development of cut-price drone killers that cost as little as $1,000, rewriting the air defense rule book and making other countries take notice.
European countries got a wake-up call last September on the changed nature of air defense when Poland scrambled multimillion-dollar military assets, including F-35 and F-16 fighter jets and Black Hawk helicopters, in response to airspace violations by cheap drones.
Ukrainian manufacturers have developed low-cost interceptor drones specifically designed to hunt and destroy Shaheds, and its rapidly expanding drone industry is producing excess capacity.
Zelenskyy announced earlier this year that Ukraine would begin exporting the battle-tested systems.
The European Union's top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said before chairing a meeting of EU and Gulf foreign ministers via video link Thursday that the talks would look at how Ukraine's experience can help countries counter Iranian drones.
Middle East war delays Russia-Ukraine talks
The Iran war, now in its sixth day, has drawn international attention away from Europe's biggest conflict since World War II, and forced the postponement of a new round of U. S-brokered talks between Russia and Ukraine planned for this week, Zelenskyy said.
Western governments and analysts say the Russia-Ukraine war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, while there is no sign that yearlong U.S.-led peace efforts will stop the fighting any time soon.
"Right now, because of the situation around Iran, there are not yet the necessary signals for a trilateral meeting," Zelenskyy said. "But as soon as the security situation and the overall political context allow us to resume that trilateral diplomatic work, it will be done."
Zelenskyy thanked the United States for the return from Russia on Thursday of 200 Ukrainian prisoners of war. Russia's Defense Ministry also said it received the same number of prisoners from Ukraine and thanked the U.S. and United Arab Emirates for mediating.
Prisoner swaps have been one of the few tangible results of the talks. Vladimir Medinsky, a Russian negotiator, said on social media that a total of 500 prisoners from each side would be exchanged between Thursday and Friday.
Oleksandr Merezhko, the head of Ukraine's parliamentary foreign affairs committee, said Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to drag out the negotiations so that he can press on with Russia's invasion while escaping further U.S. sanctions.
He urged the U.S. administration to look at the Russia-Ukraine war and the war in the Middle East as linked.
"In reality, Russia and Iran are close allies that act in concert — Iran supplies weapons and Russia helps Iran develop its defense industry. These are interconnected conflicts," Merezhko told The Associated Press.
Ukraine's army has recently pushed back Russian forces at some points along the roughly 1,250-kilometer (750-mile) front line, according to the Institute for the Study of War.
Localized Ukrainian counterattacks liberated more territory than Ukrainian forces lost in the last two weeks of February, the Washington-based think tank said this week, estimating the recovered land at about 257 square kilometers (100 square miles) since Jan. 1.
