(Defence Blog)
Russia holds large-scale military exercise on Ukraine’s border that involves hundreds of airborne assault vehicles, tanks, attack helicopters, fighter jets and thousands of soldiers.
About 1,500 paratroopers from the Novorossiysk airborne assault division, artillery troops of the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s army corps and have kicked off a large-scale war game in the Crimean peninsula show off Russia’s ability to amass large numbers of troops at extremely short notice in the event of a conflict.
Paratroopers landed in east Crimea as part of the joint drills of the Airborne Force and military transport aviation, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Friday.
“During the joint tactical flight drills of the Airborne Force and military transport aviation, more than 1,500 personnel of the Novorossiysk airborne assault large unit flew from the takeoff aerodromes to large distances aboard 15 Il-76 planes of military transport aviation and landed on the landing sites of Opuk training range,” the ministry said in a statement.
The field exercise also involves over Grad multiple launch rocket systems, 122mm 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled howitzers, 120mm D-30 howitzers, 120mm 2S9 ‘Nona-S’ self-propelled artillery guns and also Sani and Podnos mortars.
Russia is staging war games on land, air and sea in maneuvers, across the entire southern military district on the border of Ukraine.
At the final stage of the field exercise, the troops will hold force-on-force tactical drills between a separate coastal defense brigade and a separate marine infantry brigade of the Black Sea Fleet, during which they will conduct artillery live-fire, land an amphibious assault force onto the coast and practice various tactical methods of a battle between artillery units.
The field exercise will last until the end of March, the press office informed.