VLADIVOSTOK, July 14. /TASS/. Pilots of the MiG-31 fighters of the Yelizovo airbase of naval aviation of the Russian Pacific Fleet in Kamchatka have repelled a missile attack of an imaginary enemy during a summer training period exercise that was held in the adverse weather conditions, spokesman for the Eastern Military District in Vladivostok, Captain 1st Rank Roman Martov told TASS on Thursday.
"Within the framework of the planned summer period combat training events carried out in the Pacific Fleet, a group of the MiG-31 fighter jets of the Yelizovo airbase of naval aviation was alerted for a sortie to repel an imaginary enemy’s submarine missile attack. The crews had the task to detect and destroy a supersonic cruise missile launched from a nuclear-powered submarine," Martov said.
He added that the MiG-31 interceptor planes conducted the operation to detect and destroy the cruise missile jointly with the A-50 long-range aviation planes. The missile was detected and destroyed in the specified area in adverse weather conditions in Kamchatka.
A large-scale field exercise of the air defense units of Russia’s Eastern Military District began in the Khabarovsk, Primorsky, Trans-Baikal, Kamchatka Territories, in the Republic of Buryatia, in the Amur, Sakhalin and Jewish Autonomous regions on Wednesday. The drills involve more than 3,000 troops and 500 units of equipment, the district spokesman Colonel Alexander Gordeyev told TASS. "More than 3,000 servicemen and about 500 units of military and special equipment will be involved in the complex tactical drills at 10 ranges of the district. During the field exercise, the troops will practice putting battlefield air defense units on a hair-trigger alert, marching to ranges, repelling attacks of the imaginary enemy’s sabotage-reconnaissance groups, as well as passing through a contaminated terrain," Gordeyev said.
The personnel of the military district’s air defense units also drill bringing combat vehicles into firing position, as well as practice airborne targets’ search, detection, identification and tracking.