July 27^th, the Peace Mission 2013 anti- terrorism joint drills will be held in Chelyabinsk in Ural Mountainous region of Russia from today to August 15^th. More than 1,500 servicemen from Russia and China will take part in the joint drills. This is the second large-scale joint drill held by China and Russia within one month. Fang Fenghui, the general in the People's Liberation Army of the People's Republic of China, says China-Russia joint drills are not directed against any third country.

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Peace Mission 2013 joint drills will be the fifth time that China and Russia have participated in bilateral or multilateral joint exercises since 2005, and two weeks ago, servicemen from Russia and China had just finished the Joint Sea 2013 naval drill in Peter the Great Gulf near Russia's Far East port city of Vladivostok.

According to Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Gen Yansheng, the exercises will be held in three stages. And the three stages are the redeployment of troops, the planning of the operation and joint military actions. The Chinese troops will include a planning panel, a command, an infantry combat group, an air force combat group and a logistics group. They will be equipped with various models of armed vehicles, self-propelled guns, and fixed-wing and rotating-wing aircraft, including Z-9 and M-171 helicopters.

A Chinese military expert Xing Guangmei said: "The joint drills show ever-growing mutual trust between China and Russia. The political trust between the two countries has reached an unprecedented high level. Such cooperation is very important as the two countries usually face similar threats. And anti-terrorism has become a main subject of military cooperation under the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization that groups China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan."