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Military drills

Igla-S MANPAD teams repel cruise missile attack in south Russia drills

The Igla-S is capable of striking targets at a maximum altitude of 3.5 km and at a distance of 6 km

© Yuri Smityuk/TASS

MOSCOW, April 22. /TASS/. Troops armed with Igla-S man-portable air defense systems (MANPADs) repelled an attack by a notional enemy’s cruise missiles on a column of Buk-M2 surface-to-air missile complexes in drills in the southern Astrakhan Region, the press office of Russia’s Central Military District reported on Monday.

"During the drills, the notional enemy planned to deliver a missile strike against a formation of Buk-M2 air defense missile systems performing a march to the area of delivering fire. After detecting small-size targets, the teams of Igla-S man-portable air defense missile systems accompanying the column successfully destroyed the air targets, thus preventing the enemy’s air strikes," the press office said in a statement.

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India to buy Russian Igla-S MANPADS missiles — media

The drills involved about 500 troops and over 80 items of military hardware.

According to the catalog of Russia’s state arms seller Rosoboronexport, the Igla-S is a new-generation man-portable air defense missile system that excels its predecessor Igla by 2-5 times by its combat efficiency, especially when it is used against cruise missiles and small-size targets, such as drones. The Igla-S is capable of striking targets at a maximum altitude of 3.5 km and at a distance of 6 km.

The Buk-M2 air defense missile system developed by the Tikhomirov R&D Institute of Instrument-Making (Zhukovsky, Moscow Region) carries four missiles that can hit up to 24 air targets moving at a speed of up to 830 m/s at a distance of 3 to 45 km and at an altitude of 15 meters to 15 km.

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