MOSCOW. June 19 (Interfax) - Russian and Serbian special-ops personnel have trained a stealth landing and freeing of hostages at the Serbian airfield of Kovin during the first stage of the joint exercise Slavic Brotherhood 2019, the Russian Defense Ministry's information and mass communications department said in a statement.
"Today, we are preparing for the main stage of the exercise and training its most difficult elements, such as joint landing of special-ops units of the Russian Airborne Forces and the Serbian Army's Special Brigade," Col. Kenes Kuzhakhmetov, who supervised the landing drill on behalf of Russia, said.
Thirty personnel of a special-ops unit of the Russian Airborne Forces landed using Arbalet-2 parachutes, while 30 special-ops servicemen of the Serbian Army used Serbian-made specialized parachutes for landing, Kuzhakhmetov said.
"They landed at a distance from the target location after being airdropped from an Ilyushin Il-76 plane flying at an altitude of 2,000 meters. Once they landed, special-ops servicemen headed stealthily for the location, seized it, and freed the hostages," he said.
Over 600 personnel of Russia, Serbia, and Belarus are taking part in the trilateral tactical drill on June 14-27, 2019, the statement said.