ASTRAKHAN, Russia, Aug. 20 (UPI) — Russia’s Defense Ministry said the first phase of joint air-defense exercises by the Commonwealth of Independent States began this week.
The defense ministry said that troops from 20 air-defense and missile-defense units in the Moscow area have been put on high alert for the CIS Combat Commonwealth 2015 exercises, scheduled to continue through September 11.
Troops from Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan are taking part in the drills.
The exercises involve more than 1,000 servicemen, surface-to-air and missile-defense systems, fighter jets, assault attack helicopters, close air support aircraft and military transport planes, Radio Free Europe reported.
After the first phase of the exercises, the troops and military hardware will be redeployed to the Ashuluk training range in southern Russia’s Astrakhan region, about 500 kilometers (300 miles) from Russia’s border in eastern Ukraine.
To coincide with these drills, Belarus and Russia started a joint development of a new short-range air defense system to replace the outdated Strela-10M systems in service with the two armed forces.
“The work is being carried out in the framework of the [Russia-Belarus] Union State. The project involves the development of short-range air defense system,” Belarusian Deputy Defense Minister Maj. General Igor Lotenkov told RIA Novosti, as reported by Sputnik News.
Belarus is also expecting the delivery of the first six Mi-8MTV-5 military transport helicopters from Russia under their 2015 contract. This shipment is expected by the end of 2016.
In July, the Belarusian Finance Ministry announced the two countries had signed an intergovernmental agreement, which provided $760-million loan package provided by Moscow to Minsk over 10 years.
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