YEKATERINBURG. Feb 18 (Interfax-AVN) - The 5th Air and Air Defense Army covering the Central Asian area supported over 108,000 international border-crossing flights in 2002, Lieutenant General Yevgeny Yuriev, commander of the army, told Interfax- Military News Agency Tuesday.
"Combat duty is, as always, the main task of the army. In 2002, the air defense monitoring personnel detected 26 violations of flight notification rules and three air space violations. Electronic warfare units were red-alerted 700 times. The army supported over 108,000 international border-crossing flights in the previous year," the general said.
He said that the army resumed active combat training since the beginning of the previous year. "In June 2002, one of air defense missile regiments performed live firing in the Telemba training center, and August 2002 was the first in 10 previous years that saw a joint exercise with live firing at the Ashuluk testing ground."
The exercise also involved units of fighter aviation, air defense, missile, and EW units. The exercise was planned with due account for the warfare experience of Yugoslavia and Afghanistan conflicts, and the Gulf War. In September 2002, the C2 and some units of the army took part in a command post exercise with the Volga-Ural Military District, run by the commander of the Land Forces.
The army takes part in inhabited space reentry operations. For example, it supported the reentry of the Musabayev-Budarin- Baturin space crew in August 1998. Last year, the S&R units organic to the army run seven operations with space objects, five of them inhabited.
The army got bomber and surveillance aircraft in the past few years. Since January 1, 2003 it has also been covering Army Aviation units, including those headquartered in Tajikistan.
The army was founded in 1940. Its current AoR covers more area than France. It was in the Ural sky that the U.S. U2 spy plane was shot down during the Cuban crisis.