MOSCOW. July 15 (Interfax-AVN) - The Caucasus-2008 large scale antiterrorist exercise of the Russian Ground Forces involving about 8,000 people began in the North Caucasian military district on Tuesday.
"The main goal of the exercise is to assess the capability of military administration agencies to act cooperatively in conditions of a terrorist threat in southern Russia. Given the escalation of the situation in the Georgian-Abkhaz and Georgian-South Ossetian conflict zones, the exercise will also practice participation in special peace-building operations in conflict zones," spokesman for the Russian Ground Forces commander Col. Igor Konashenkov told Interfax-AVN.
Units of the North Caucasian Military District, the district's airborne troops, airforce and air defense forces, the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea fleets, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) department in the Southern Federal District and the regional command of the Russian Interior Troops will take part in the exercise, the spokesman said.
Over 140 tactical exercises of the division and battalion scale, over 500 exercises of the squadron scale, as well as 200 command-post exercises are expected to take place this summer, he said.
"Peacekeeping issues that were included on the program of combat training of certain units in the North Caucasian Military District are a peculiarity of the new training period," he said.