Russian Air Force Reports on Scheduled Drills

Text of report by Russian news agency Interfax-AVN website

Moscow, 24 August: As part of the scheduled flight exercises, the long-range aviation crews in Tu-22M3 aircraft practiced the tactics of penetrating through enemy air defences, dropping bombs and launching missiles, the aide to Air Force commander-in-chief, Col Aleksandr Drobyshevskiy, told Interfax-AVN today. “During the exercise at Guryanovo training range in Saratov Region, the crews practiced the tactics of enemy air defence penetration and dropping of bombs. The launching of air-to-surface cruise missiles was practiced at the Emba training range in Kazakhstan,” he said. The long-range aviation exercises were held on 22-24 August and supervised by its commander Maj-Gen Pavel Androsov, he added.

[Another AVN report quoted Drobyshevskiy as saying that in a separate scheduled exercise held in Krasnodar Territory and Ivanovo and Pskov regions, over 2,000 landing troops and over 10 pieces of hardware had been parachuted from Il-76 military transport planes, the crews also practiced navigation in difficult weather conditions. This drill was supervised by the commander of the 61st Air Army, Maj- Gen Viktor Kachalkin]

Sources: Interfax-AVN military news agency website, Moscow, in Russian 0825 gmt; 1010 gmt; 24 Aug 07

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