YEKATERINBURG, August 28. /TASS/. The Central Military District’s Urals armored division held a final episode of its largest drills in 2020 that involved tank and motor rifle units, artillery and aircraft, the District’s press office reported on Friday.

"During the drills with a live-fire exercise, the division’s armored and motor rifle units practiced the episode of switching from defense to an offensive and securing their positions at the flanks," the press office said in a statement.

"The directions of the movement, the frontiers for the ground forces to gain their positions and also the top priority targets for the armored and motor rifle units for striking with firepower were uncovered by the crews of Su-24MR frontline reconnaissance planes," the statement says.

The enemy facilities were eliminated by a bomb strike of Su-34 multirole fighter-bombers. Following this, the crews of tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers supported by artillery contained the enemy’s actions and shielded their flanks against an attack, according to the statement.

"At the final stage, the personnel of the armored large unit practiced advancing to the notional state border after knocking out the intruder from the occupied positions and eliminating its surrounded units with the help of aircraft," the press office said.

At the final stage of the drills, the troops employed T-73B3 tanks, BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles and BTR-82AM and BTR-80 armored personnel carriers, and also 9P140 ‘Uragan’ and BM-21 ‘Grad’ multiple rocket launchers and 2S3 ‘Akatisya’ self-propelled artillery guns, the statement says.

The drills of the Urals armored division involving about 8,000 troops and over 1,800 items of military hardware and also aircraft and helicopters of a composite air formation of the Central Military District and a separate army aviation brigade were the main combat training event for the Central Military District’s Guards armored division in 2020.

The Guards Vitebsk-Novgorod Twice Red Banner Armored Division was set up in 2016 and is stationed in the Chelyabinsk and Sverdlovsk Regions. The division is armed with advanced modifications of T-72 tanks and new BTR-82A armored personnel carriers. It was assigned the honorary name of the Urals Tank Battalion to keep the traditions and the memory about the heroic deeds of the 30th Urals Volunteer Tank Corps during the Soviet Union’s 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany.