BLAGOVESHCHENSK, April 16. /TASS/. Troops in Russia’s Eastern Military District employed a new tactic to fight illegal armed formations during drills, the District’s press office reported on Tuesday.
"A special tactical exercise was held at the Tryokhrechye practice range for the personnel of the Eastern Military District’s army stationed in the Amur Region to train units in the new tactics of fighting illegal armed formations, using the experience of present-day armed conflicts," the press office said in a statement.
During the week, a motorized infantry division stationed in the Jewish Autonomous Region were deployed to an unfamiliar practice range in the Amur Region where they searched for and blocked about 300 notional terrorists who employed the armor and modern firearms, the statement says.
"The troops maximally used unmanned aerial vehicles, electronic warfare systems, artillery and tank units. The attempts by some groups of the illegal armed formations to break through the sealed-off area at night were halted by the tanks’ barrage fire and by a new method where artillery set up blinding lines," the press office said.
As the Eastern Military District told TASS, under this method, artillery teams shell the hostile area with special illuminating projectiles. This allows troops to see the area well and simultaneously demoralize the enemy by impairing its night vision devices.
The drills involved more than 1,000 troops and about 250 items of military hardware that included Orlan-10 unmanned aerial vehicles, Akatsiya 152mm self-propelled howitzers and Grad multiple launch rocket systems that went into service in the Eastern Military District this year, as well as Sani mortars, T-72B tanks and BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles.