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Military drills

Russian Army's anti-coronavirus measures helped hold Kavkaz-2020 drills — defense chief

Overall, the exercises involved almost 79,500 troops and up to 250 tanks, 450 infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers and 200 artillery and multiple launch rocket systems, according to the top brass

MOSCOW, October 12. /TASS/. Anti-coronavirus measures implemented in the Russian Armed Forces helped carry out the Kavkaz-2020 (Caucasus-2020) strategic command and staff drills in full, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Monday.

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"An effective system of countering the pandemic was set up in the Defense Ministry within the shortest time possible. The measures implemented helped avoid mass infection among servicemen and carry out scheduled combat training measures, including the preparations for the Kavkaz-2020 drills. As a result, we prevented the reduction of the combat potential of the armed forces," the defense chief said, summing up the results of the strategic military exercise.

The Kavkaz-2020 drills that ran on the territory of Russia’s Southern Military District on September 21-26 concluded a cycle of the troops’ operational and combat training in 2020, Shoigu said.

Overall, the Kavkaz-2020 drills involved almost 79,500 troops of various military branches and combat arms and also up to 250 tanks, 450 infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers and 200 artillery and multiple launch rocket systems, the defense chief said.

The Kavkaz-2020 strategic command and staff drills complied with all the requirements of the 2011 Vienna Document on the numerical strength of the personnel and military hardware of the Army, Navy and the Air Force involved in a military exercise under a single command, he stressed.

This was confirmed by the inspection groups from Germany and Denmark, and also by the joint missions of Germany, Romania and France that worked under the Open Skies Treaty during the active phase of the drills, the Russian defense chief said.

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