KYIV. Dec 30 (Interfax-AVN) - Ukrainian military have held a large-scale anti-terrorist exercise at a military airfield near the city of Lviv.
"The exercise involved the 19th separate WMD protection battalion reporting to the Western operational command of the Ukrainian Land Forces, i.e. some 600 servicemen and over 90 pieces of special hardware," the Defense Ministry press service reported on Monday.
The deputy chief of the Western operational command, Lieutenant General Valeriy Frolov, supervised the exercise.
According to a press service official, participants in the war games practiced in combating a terrorist group that invaded a military installation using chemical assets. The battalion's personnel took a series of measures related with radiation and chemical reconnaissance and organized elimination of the attack's consequences.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Volodymyr Shkidchenko, Land Forces Commander Petro Shulyak, chief of the Western operational command Colonel General Sergo Shernilevsky and foreign defense attaches accredited in Ukraine attended the war games.
Shkidchenko said after the end of the training that the battalion "is intended for carrying out combat operations and providing aid to population in man-made emergencies."
"The country's political leadership is to decide on involvement of such units in anti-terrorist activities. The task of the armed forces is to have units capable of accomplishing such missions," he noted.
Summing up results of the exercise, the defense minister praised skills of the personnel involved in the event.