President Vladimir Putin has watched Russia’s largest military exercise in the post-Soviet era.

President Vladimir Putin has watched Russia’s largest military exercise in the post-Soviet era.

The maneuvers involve 160,000 troops and about 5,000 tanks across Siberia and the far eastern region in a massive show of Russia’s resurgent military might.

Dozens of Russia's Pacific Fleet ships and 130 combat aircraft also took part in the drills, which will continue through the week.

The Russian president watched some of the drills on Sakhalin Island in the Pacific, where thousands of troops were ferried and airlifted from the mainland.

Wearing a black jacket, blue jeans and white sporting shoes, Putin sat comfortably in the capsule’s glassed front and submerged into the Gulf of Finland to look at the wooden wreck.

Deputy defense minister Anatoly Antonov assured foreign military attaches that theexercise was part of regular combat training and was not directed against any particular nation.

Antonov said Moscow warned its neighbors about the exercise before it started, and provided particularly detailed information to China in line with an agreement that envisages a mutual exchange of data about military activities along the 2,700-mile border.