MOSCOW. June 8 (Interfax-AVN) - Russia is about to begin a large-scale exercise on troops transportation from the northwest to the east of the country, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.
"Three IL-76 Candid military transport planes have arrived at the Koltsovo airfield in Yekaterinburg. They have started taking aboard military hardware for its transportation to the exercise area in the Far East," the spokesman told Interfax- Military News Agency.
About 50 IL-76, AN-22 Cock and AN-124 Condor military transport planes will be refueled and take military hardware aboard in Koltsovo during the Mobilnost 2004 exercise. Civilian IL-86 Camber planes will do the same in Koltsovo, too, the spokesman said.
Military transports and civilian aircraft will also airlift marine units from the Kola peninsula and paratroopers from Pskov to the Far East.
Civil aircraft are taking part in servicemen's transportation in the framework of an exercise for the first time.
The chief goal of the exercise, which will be directed by Anatoly Kvashnin, Armed Forces chief of staff, is to transport mobile reserves and rapid deployment units, in particular paratroopers and marines, to distant locations" the official said.
In the course of the exercise nearly 800 servicemen, weaponry and military hardware will be airlifted from northwestern Russia to the Far East, where they will train in combat on new terrain while the command of the Armed Forces exercise teamwork with other law enforcement and military agencies.
The exercise will proceed in stages and cover an area from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific coast.
Combat operations will be staged at training ranges of the Far Eastern military district and Pacific Fleet. During the main stage of the war games, a landing party will be airdropped in the maneuver enemy's rear and a naval party will land on the sea cost to capture a beachhead.
Central C2 bodies of the Armed Forces and other Russian law- enforcement agencies will take part in the war games.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov earlier told reporters that about 50 large military aircraft will be used to airlift personnel and materiel. "The active phase of the exercise will be held in the Far East from June 21 to 25," he said.
The Northern Fleet will be actively involved in the large- scale exercise scheduled for the coming days, Ivanov said. "The fleet's marines will be redeployed on the Pacific Coast, its aircraft will fly over the Atlantic and submarines will launch missiles, in particular intercontinental missiles," he said.
"Russia had no such exercise before," the minister stressed.