MOZDOK, December 7 (AVN) - The Aviation Combat Management Centre in the North Caucasus is fully restored and is working in the regular regime, Lieutenant-General Valery Gorbenko, commander of the federal aviation group, said on Tuesday.
Similar centres previously existed in the Russian Armed Forces, but were extinct when the Air Force and the Air Defence were unified, Gorbenko told the Military News Agency.
The Centre has secret communications with all federal operative groups and aviation layers in Chechnya and the neighbouring regions, Gorbenko went on. All Russian law-enforcement bodies now have to inform the Centre about flights of their aircraft and missions they perform.
In the beginning of the anti-guerrilla campaign, interaction between the Air Force, army aviation, Interior Ministry aviation and aircraft of other law-enforcement bodies was very poor, the general said. When an Air Force plane was set a mission to eliminate a certain guerrilla object, it took a lot of time to find out where ground troops and Interior Ministry units are stationed, so that unnecessary losses could be evaded. At present, this problem is fully solved thanks to the Combat Management Centre, Gorbenko stressed.
He also noted that the centre, based in the south Russian town of Rostov-on-Don was preserved as a non-staff army unit. Its equipment mounted on carrier vehicles turned out to be very useful in the Chechnya war.
Taking into account the experience gained in the course of the North Caucasian warfare, the Air Force has decided to restore Combat Management Centres in all military districts and aviation armies, Gorbenko concluded.