ST. PETERSBURG. May 25 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian Armed Forces will stage an exercise in June on airlifting a large military unit from one theater of operations to another, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told a news conference in St. Petersburg Tuesday.
"In June we are planing to lift our units from the west to the east of the country," the minister said.
"The active phase of the exercise will be held in the Far East from June 21 to 25. A Land Forces permanent readiness regiment with equipment, and some airborne and amphibious units will be airlifted to the Far East. A total of about 800 personnel will be airlifted," said Ivanov.
According to him, about 50 large military aircraft will be used to airlift personnel and materiel, all of them "at once."
"Commercial long-haul airliners will participate in the exercise. We will see how civilian and military traffic control officers can cooperate," he added.
"Russia had no such exercise before," the minister concluded.