PRISTINA, March 9 (AVN) - First 80 officers of the European Corps arrive from Strasbourg to KFOR peacekeeping forces here Thursday, a source in the Russian military contingent staff in Pristina told the Military News Agency.
The advance Eurocorps airborne unit which has to head the KFOR peacekeepers on April 1 includes German, French, Spanish and Belgian troops. Soon they will be followed by 300 more servicemen of the Eurocorps. They will be the officers which will head the peacekeeping operations for half a year istead of NATO. Thus the Serbian region will be both NATO's and Eurocorps' manoeuvre area.
At the moment international peacekeeping forces number 44,000 men from 26 states including Russia.
More than 38,000 are stationed in the territory of Kosovo, divided into five sectors. The units of Russian military contingent numbering 3,500 men stay in four of the sectors, the source said.
The Eurocorps was set up in 1992 by France and Germany. Afterwards Belgium, Spain and Luxemburg joined it. The General Staff of the Eurocorps is located in Strasbourg, where there is also a French-German Eurocorps which consists of 60,000 servicemen.