ASTANA. April 18 (Interfax-AVN) - A tactical exercise of the Kazakh air defense units ended at the Sary-Shagan proving range on Friday.
"A tactical exercise of Air Defense units and Land Forces air defense units from military districts of the Kazakh Armed Forces took place at the Sary-Shagan proving range in the Karaganda region from April 15 to 18," the Defense Ministry press service told Interfax-Military News Agency.
"The exercise at Sary-Shagan was a component of the Batys 2003 large-scale strategic exercise of the republic's armed forces that has just ended," a press service official said.
He noted that participants in the exercise at Sary-Shagan practiced actions of on-duty air defense units in airspace protection.
The final stage of the exercise consisted of live firing. "Under the auspices of cooperation within the CIS Unified Air Defense System, the live firing stage involved crews of SAM systems of the Kyrgyz and Tajik Armed Forces," the official stressed.
On Friday morning, the exercise and live firing were observed by Kazakh Defense Minister Mukhtar Altynbayev and officials of the CIS military cooperation coordination headquarters.