MOSCOW, May 3 (AVN) - Airborne Chief-of-staff Lieutenant-General Nikolai Staskov will chair a session on Thursday that will analyse preliminary results on combat activities in units and formations for the winter training period, Colonel Vladimir Oparin, chief of the airborne training department of the Airborne Staff, said.
The main result of the training is already known - over 40 parachute jumps were made during the winter period, which is more than 70 percent of the planned number, Oparin told the Military News Agency. During tactical and command post exercises over 40 pieces of combat equipment, arms and cargo were airdropped on parachute and jet systems.
The best results were shown by the 106th and 76th airborne divisions and the Ryazan Airborne Institute where some 90 percent of planned jumps were performed. The paratroopers could not perform the programme in full for the majority of personnel is participating in the Chechnya campaign as well as accomplishing peacekeeping missions in Kosovo, Bosnia and Abkhazia. Another problem is the lack of fuel for military transport aviation which ensure combat training for paratroopers.
"During the latest command post training in the Moscow military district the airdrop of the reinforced paratrooper battalion commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Andrei Krasov was cancelled by Chief-of-Staff Anatoly Kvashnin due to the kerosene limit for IL-76 Candid planes," Oparin added.