YEKATERINBURG, October 18. /TASS/. Troops will engage over 100 artillery systems and rocket launchers at the drills of the member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in Tajikistan, the press office of Russia’s Central Military District reported on Monday.
"A joint group of rocket forces and artillery has been set up as part of the exercise to include two rocket artillery battalions and a battalion of self-propelled howitzers from the Central Military District’s 201st military base and also artillery units of the Republic of Tajikistan," the press office said in a statement.
"The joint group operates Russian Grad and Uragan multiple rocket launchers, 152mm Akatsiya and 122mm Gvozdika self-propelled howitzers, Kornet anti-tank missile systems, and 120mm 2S12 Sani mortars," the statement says.
Overall, more than 100 artillery systems and rocket launchers will be engaged in the exercise, the press office specified.
The artillery units will practice delivering barrage fire, destroying materiel, and suppressing a notional enemy’s long-term fire emplacements. At the final stage of the drills, the Russian troops jointly with the bloc’s military contingents will conduct an operation to block and eliminate notional outlawed armed gangs that intruded into the territory of the CSTO member states, the press office specified.
Russia’s Central Military District Commander Colonel General Alexander Lapin earlier said that the post-Soviet security bloc would conduct Interaction, Search, and Echelon maneuvers with the military contingents of its member states in Tajikistan near the Afghan border in October.