MOSCOW. Jan 13 (Interfax-AVN) - The Air Force no longer launches strikes on illegal armed units and their infrastructure in Chechnya, Air Force Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Mikhailov told a news conference at the Interfax main office on Thursday.
"We have been giving MI-24 Hind support to convoys and have had MI-8 Hip helicopters transporting servicemen in Chechnya for more than two months," he said.
Air defense aviation has always been on standby, and assault aviation is now on four-hour emergency alert, Mikhailov said.
"Assault aviation skills were displayed during the Rubezh 2004 exercises. All the crews of the SU-24 front bombers placed bombs precisely on the designated circles. But the bombers do not need to be used in Chechnya now," Mikhailov said.
The Russian Air Force is ready for preventive strikes on terrorist facilities in case of a real threat to national security, he said. "If we are ordered to make a preventive strike, we will make it. And that is true not only for the North Caucasus," Mikhailov said.