CHEBARKUL TESTING RANGE, Aug 17: Fighter jets streaked through the air and armoured vehicles roared across a field as Russian and Chinese forces on Friday held their first joint manoeuvres on Russian land, demonstrating their growing military ties and a shared desire to counter US global clout.

The war games in the southern Ural Mountains involved some 6,000 troops from Russia and China along with a handful of soldiers from four ex-Soviet Central Asian nations that are part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a regional group dominated by Moscow and Beijing.

The drills coincided with a massive Russian air force exercise in which dozens of Russian strategic bombers ranged far over the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans.

President Vladimir Putin, Chinese leader Hu Jintao and other leaders of the SCO nations attended the exercise, which followed their summit ON Thursday in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek.

The summit concluded with a communiqué that sounded like a thinly veiled warning to the United States to stay away from the strategically placed, resource-rich region. “Stability and security in Central Asia are best ensured primarily through efforts taken by the nations of the region on the basis of the existing regional associations,” the statement said.

Friday’s military exercise involved dozens of aircraft and hundreds of armoured vehicles and other heavy weapons that countered a mock attack by terrorists and insurgents striving to take control of energy resources.

The United States, Russia and China are locked in an increasingly tense rivalry for control over Central Asia’s vast hydrocarbon riches. Washington supports plans for pipelines that would carry the region’s oil and gas to the West and bypass Russia, while Moscow has pushed strongly to control the export flows. China also has shown a growing appetite for energy to power its booming economy.—AP