MOSCOW. April 11 (Interfax-AVN) - Russian Air Force Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Mikhailov has praised results of the command post exercise (CPX) performed by elements of the CIS Unified Air Defense System in several member-nations of the Commonwealth on Wednesday and Thursday.
"During the exercise the CIS Unified Air Defense System proved that it is developing and accomplishing assigned tasks aimed at defending the Commonwealth's aerial borders on a high quality level," Mikhailov said.
Participants in the exercise practiced the protection of aerial borders of the CIS member-nations, prevention of the borders' violation, and provision of aid to aircraft in distress.
The two-day event involved command bodies and air defense forces on duty from Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan, he noted.
Over 50 planes and helicopters created the background for the war games.
The exercise took place on the eve of the Combat Commonwealth 2003 coalition training that is to take place at the Ashuluk proving range in the Astrakhan region from late August to early September.
"This is our traditional training but its main peculiarity is that it is becoming larger, involving more forces and means, adding more automatic elements to processes of data transmission, etc., with each year," Mikhailov added.