MOSCOW. April 11 (Interfax-AVN) - The command of the Armed Forces pays great attention to Russia's developing a new model of aerospace defense, Colonel General Vladimir Cheltsov, chief-of- staff of the Air Force, has said.
Transition to the territorial ideology of air defense combat employment is "an analog of the future structure of aerospace defense," Cheltsov said in an interview with the Krasnaya Zvezda daily, published on Friday.
It is a task that a separate armed service is not able to accomplish, he said.
"This has to be joint effort in a single information space within a single location, intelligence, navigation, and command systems, then followed by (the development of - Interfax-AVN) a fire system," he also said.
"I am bound to say that the Defense Ministry and the General Staff, as well as the government and the president consider this a high priority. We are going on with this work now, and although it is consuming much expertise and money, this is our future, and we will be there," he added.
He exemplified close cooperation between the air defenses organic to the Air Force and to the Land Forces by the recent huge exercise in the North Caucasus.
"In the recent exercise in the North Caucasus Military District all the assets and forces of the Air Force AD, Army Aviation, Land Forces AD, and frontline aviation were put under a single chain of command," he said.
The CPX led by the Armed Forces Chief-of- Staff Anatoly Kvashnin fully involved an Air Defense and Air Force Army, he said. He added that the Air Force had engaged all test targets and had provided full coverage to assault aviation.
"We have long transited from the battlefield to the theater air defense concept. This means that all the forces deployed within the AoR of an Air Defense and Air Force Army are involved in air defense operations under a single chain of command. These forces are not only the Air Force air defenses, but also naval and battlefield air defenses, as well as intelligence and EW units," Cheltsov said.