MOSCOW, May 23. /ITAR-TASS/. The Briz-M upper stage has successfully placed into orbit a set of military satellites, spokesperson for Russian Defense Ministry’s Aerospace Defense Forces Colonel Alexei Zolotukhin told ITAR-TASS on Friday.

“The Briz-M upper stage successfully placed three military satellites into the final orbit at the prescribed time — at 11:12 Moscow time (07:12 GMT). The satellites have been taken under control by the facilities of Russian Defense Ministry’s ground-based automated management system that will be controlling them further during the orbital flight,” the official said.

After the orbit placement, the spacecraft have been assigned the sequence numbers Kosmos-2496, Kosmos-2497, Kosmos-2498.

The light-class Rokot launch vehicle with the Briz-KM and thee military satellites was set off from the Plesetsk cosmodrome at 09:27 Moscow time (05:27 GMT), Friday.