MOSCOW. June 16 (Interfax-AVN) - About 1,000 experts from 22 Euroatlantic Partnership member-states will participate in the Kaliningrad 2004 anti-terrorist exercise, to be held in the Kaliningrad region on June 22-25.
"The main objective of the field and simulated strategic exercise is to study existing national, regional, and multinational accords and relations in order manage terrorist attack-caused disaster relief and prevention operations," the NATO Information Bureau reported on Wednesday.
According to it, the exercise will be sponsored by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid, the EU, the International Civil Defense Organization, and other international organizations.
"The exercise will result in developing proposals on further cooperation within the framework of the NATO-Russian Council, and the Euroatlantic Partnership Council," the report said.
The field exercise will be held on June 23.
"The scenario envisions a simulated terrorist attack against an offshore oil rig. The attack will result in a great number of casualties, as well as an oil spill, jeopardizing maritime areas. The exercise is aimed at testing regional capabilities of countering terrorist attack aftereffects. The field exercise will see participation of rescue units from Poland, Lithuania, and Russia," the report reads.
According to the report, closed conferences, conducted in the course of the Kaliningrad 2004 exercise, will discuss various scenarios of disasters, caused primarily by terrorist attacks.
A spokesman for the Emergencies Ministry earlier told Interfax-Military News Agency that the Russian side will be represented at the exercise by teams of the Tsentrospas Central State Airmobile Rescue Team, the 294th Lider center for hazardous rescue operations, the GOSAKVASPAS organization, the Emergencies Ministry aviation, the territorial subsystem of the United Emergency Situation Warning and Liquidation System of the Kaliningrad region, including the Kaliningrad offshoot of the Baltic Basin Emergency Rescue Directorate of the Russian Transportation Ministry, as well as ships and ground units of the Baltic Fleet.
"The Russian Emergencies Ministry's KA-32 Helix and MI-8 Hip helicopters will be employed to suppress fire at the Vyshka-1 platform of the Ts-8 oil field. They will have specially designed water-discharging devices. In addition, a fire-fighting boat will be used, and the Be-200ChS amphibian will demonstrate its capabilities for the first time, dropping water to the focus of fire," the spokesman said.