MOSCOW. Oct 15 (Interfax) - Russian and Serbian air defense forces have conducted a joint exercise to practice repelling an enemy airstrike, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
"Combat crews of a newly-established Russian-Serbian joint air defense force practiced detecting and identifying aerial targets and transferring this information to the joint command center of said air defense force at the Pasuljanske Livade range. They also repelled an airstrike imitating launches of air defense guided missiles," the ministry said.
The ministry said earlier that Russia redeployed a battery of Pantsir-S short-range anti-aircraft systems to Serbia. They arrived at the Pasuljanske Livade range, where the Pantsirs were to conduct practical firing.
During the practice to repel an airstrike, Serbian Air Force planes and helicopters imitated the targets that were to be intercepted.
"Over 20 aerial vehicles were scrambled, including helicopters, small-size and transport planes, and also fighter aircraft," the Russian Defense Ministry said.
The aerial vehicles were supposed to pass through air defenses unnoticed to radars and imitate attacks from different directions and at different altitudes and speeds. The flights were performed both at daytime and nighttime.
As was reported earlier, Serbia is currently hosting the joint tactical flight exercise Bars 2021 with Russia. Involved in the maneuvers are Russian-Serbian joint crews flying MiG-29 fighter aircraft and Mil Mi-8 and Mi-35 helicopters.
Russia previously redeployed air defense systems to Serbia for exercises two years ago. The Russian Defense Ministry reported on October 24, 2019 that military transport aircraft airlifted a battalion of S-400 Triumph long-range air defense missile systems and a battery of short-range Pantsir-S anti-aircraft missile and artillery systems to Serbia. That was the first time S-400 and Pantsir-S systems were involved in maneuvers outside of Russia.
On November 5, 2019, the Defense Ministry said the S-400 and Pantsir-S systems were returned to Russia from Serbia.
Interfax has reported before that Serbia bought six Pantsir-S systems from Russia. Moscow has also said it was prepared to sell other air defense systems to Serbia.