ROSTOV-ON-DON. Oct 20 (Interfax) - Signal support specialists from Russia's Southern Military District held a largescale training exercise, during which they practiced exchanging data by ensuring stable, uninterrupted communications between the field command centers of different military units, Air Force and Air Defense Units, and military bases in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Armenia.
"The training took place as part of an opposing-force command-and-staff troops control exercise in the southwestern strategic sector under the supervision of the Southern Military District commander," Southern Military District spokesman Col. Vadim Astafyev said.
During the exercise, more than 1,500 signal support specialists secretly relocated equipment, held closed-circuit videoconference sessions and exchanged electronic data amid radio countermeasures.
"The servicemen ensured undisrupted and stable control over forces day and night amid mock enemy electronic countermeasures, exposure to toxic agents, the activities of sabotage and reconnaissance groups and drone attacks," Astafyev said.
About 200 pieces of hardware took part in the exercise.
The drills were hosted by training ranges located in the Volgograd and Rostov regions, the Stavropol and Krasnodar Territories, the internal republics of Dagestan and North Ossetia, as well as the Russian military bases in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Armenia.
"In all, around 8,000 servicemen and some 350 weapons and pieces of military hardware from combined-arms armies, Air Force and Air Defense units, units of different branches of the Armed Forces, special operations forces under regional jurisdiction, and forces of the Black Sea Fleet and the Caspian Flotilla," the military district's press service said.