Indonesia and Russia have begun their first joint naval exercises, as Jakarta’s new leader Prabowo Subianto seeks a bigger role for the south-east Asian country on the global stage.
The exercises off the eastern coast of Java island, come just two weeks after Prabowo, a former general and defence minister, took over Indonesia’s presidency.
Prabowo has vowed to maintain Indonesia’s long-standing neutral foreign policy, but he is also seeking a more influential role for the world’s fourth-most populous country, whose natural resources have put it at the centre of global clean energy supply chains.
The five-day joint exercise will be conducted in Surabaya, a port in the east of Java, and its surrounding waters, the Indonesian navy said on Monday. Russia has brought four warships, one helicopter and one tug salvage ship for the exercise, it added.
Indonesia has held joint exercises with Russia in the past as part of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, but this week’s drills are the first bilateral effort between the two countries. Jakarta also holds annual joint exercises with the US and its allies.
As president-elect, Prabowo travelled to more than a dozen countries and met leaders including Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping. Last week, his administration announced its intention of joining the Brics grouping of major emerging economies that includes China and Russia.
“We consider Russia as a great friend,” Prabowo said in a statement after meeting Putin in July, calling to deepen ties with Moscow.
But Julia Lau, senior fellow and co-co-ordinator of the Indonesia studies programme at the Iseas-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, warned against interpreting the naval drills and overtures to the Brics bloc of emerging economies as evidence of a tilt towards China and Russia. As president-elect, Prabowo also met Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy and France’s Emmanuel Macron.
Prabowo “is trying a balancing act vis-à-vis the US, China and Russia,” she said. The military drills with Russia are “part of the new administration’s strategy to show that they are not aligned with any great power”.