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All forces participating in surprise drills in Russia return to bases

The Russian Armed Forces ended a large-scale drill of the ground troops, the Navy and aviation

NOVO-OGAREVO, July 23 (Itar-Tass) - All military forces, which were participating in surprise military exercises in the Eastern Military District, came back to their permanent deployment bases, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said at a meeting with Russian President and Supreme Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Putin here on Tuesday.

The president noted that the Russian Armed Forces ended a large-scale drill of the ground troops, the Navy and aviation. “We agreed that today the forces, which were participating in these war games, should already return to their bases and barracks,” the president recalled.

Shoigu confirmed that all the tasks set in the military exercises were fulfilled. “During the surprise drills we held two major serious stages of the military exercises. According to all our plans of a surprise drill (on Monday) all the troops went back to their permanent deployment bases by midnight,” the minister reported. “All passed without any accidents, all structures - transportation, commandant’s offices and road services worked perfectly, for what we thank them,” the defence minister said.

The supreme commander-in-chief and the president gave orders to conduct a surprise drill in the Eastern Military District on July 12 and already overnight to July 13 the forces were put on full combat alert with their transfer to the areas of the military exercises and to the firing ranges.

This surprise drill of combat readiness became the most large-scale one in the post-Soviet history. The formations and military units of the Central and Eastern Military Districts, the Pacific Fleet, the Long-Range and Military Transport Aviation were involved in the military exercises. The main goal of the drills was to check the readiness of military units to fulfil their missions and estimate the level of training of the military staff, technical provision and the arming of the formations and military units with weapons and military hardware.

The total numerical strength involved the surprise military exercises reached 160,000 servicemen, about 1,000 tanks and combat armoured vehicles, 130 warplanes and helicopters of long-range, military transport, fighter, bombing and army aviation, as well as 70 warships and vessels. The military formations drilled the combat tasks at 17 firing ranges, and the warships of the Pacific Fleet drilled the combat missions in the Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan (the East Sea).