Indonesia and Russia kicked off their first ever joint naval exercise in the Java Sea on Monday.
That’s according to The Moscow Times, Ukrinform reports.
Indonesia, the region’s biggest economy, maintains a neutral foreign policy, refusing to take sides in the Russo-Ukrainian war or in great power competition between Washington and Beijing.
However, the newly inaugurated President Prabowo Subianto, a 73-year-old ex generak, has pledged to be bolder on the world stage and in July visited Moscow for talks with Vladimir Putin where he said he sought deeper relationship with Russia. Analysts say the joint exercises signal Prabowo is beginning a significant foreign policy shift, pledging to boost Jakarta’s alliances with major powers.
The five-day drills will take place in two phases at a naval base in Surabaya and in the Java Sea.
Russia has sent three corvette class warships, a medium tanker ship, a military helicopter, and a tug boat, the Indonesian navy said in a statement last week.
The southeast Asian ASEAN bloc, which Indonesia is a member of, held joint exercises with Russia in 2021, but Jakarta had never held drills alone with Moscow before this week.
Jakarta has billion-dollar trade ties with Moscow, yet major arms imports have stalled in recent years after Russia seized Crimea in 2014 and launched its full-scale military offensive on Ukraine in 2022.
Still, since becoming defense minister in 2019 Prabowo has kept alive a $1.1 billion Russian fighter jet deal agreed a year earlier, despite the reported threat of U.S. sanctions.
