Itar-Tass,
MOSCOW: Air defense forces from the countries making up the United Air Defense System of the CIS began a final stage of their drill on Monday involving practice shooting at the Ashuluk firing range near Astrakhan, southern Russia, Russian Air Force spokesman Alexander Drobyshevsky told Itar-Tass.
Taking part in the exercise, codenamed Combat Partnership 2005, are pursuit aircraft, assault aircraft, bombers and reconnaissance planes.
Fighters will simulate an air fight while Su-25 ground assault aircraft and Su-24 bombers will drill attacks on ground-based targets.
Earlier, Lieutenant-General Aitech Bizhev, first deputy chief commander of the Russian Air Force, told reporters that the exercise has a special feature, since a unified regional grouping of air defense troops will be set up for the first time ever in the course of it.
Commands will be given to it automatically, as all actions of the units will be controlled from a unified command post, he said.
The drill involves more than 2,000 servicemen, S-300, S-125 and C-75 air defense systems, and some 40 planes, including Su-24 frontline bombers, Su-25 assault aircraft, Su-27, MiG-29 and MiG-31 fighters, and an A-50 long-range radar plane.
The final stage will involve servicemen from Armenia, Belarus, Tajikistan, and Russia. Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan have already had practice shooting at their firing ranges earlier this summer.
