Moscow (CNN) It was an impressive display of military might. The heaths of the Tsugol training range were transformed into a simulated battlefield, as a Russian and Chinese "coalition" fought a fictional adversary.

While Russian President Vladimir Putin watched, modernized Russian T-90 main battle tanks rumbled into position, staging an assault with the support of Chinese Type 99 tanks. An air strike featuring Su-35 fighter jets, a cornerstone of Russian-Chinese military interoperability, then followed.

Thursday's maneuvers were the capstone of Vostok 2018 -- the military exercises that Russia has billed as the largest it has staged since Cold War-era drills in 1981.

Russia holds large military exercises at this time every year. But this week's exercise was something different. It was an advertisement for a burgeoning military partnership between Moscow and Beijing, as well as a less than subtle pitch for exporting Russia's top-of-the-line military hardware.

Twenty-five thousand troops and 7,000 pieces of hardware were part of the Tsugol exercise on Thursday. And that was just a fraction of the total military strength that was mobilized for Vostok 2018.

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