MOSCOW, September 7. /TASS/. A group of Russian military inspectors will carry out this week an observation flight over the territory of the Czech Republic within the frames of the international Open Skies Treaty, according to a Russian senior military official.
"The observation flight over the territory of the Czech Republic will be held between September 7 and 11 with the aircraft taking off from Pardubice Airport," Sergey Ryzhkov, the head of the Russian Defense Ministry’s National Nuclear Risk Reduction Center, stated.
"An approximate range of the observation flight is estimated at 800 kilometers [over 497 miles]," Ryzhkov added.
The observation flight is carried out with the use of an An-30B aircraft, which will be strictly following an earlier approved route, Ryzhkov stated. Military experts from the Czech Republic will be present on board of the plane supervising the use of the surveillance equipment and observation of the Treaty provisions.
The Treaty on Open Skies was signed in March 1992 in Helsinki by 23 member-nations of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
The Open Skies’ main goals are to build transparency, render assistance in monitoring compliance with existing or future arms control agreements, broaden possibilities for preventing crises and managing crisis situations. The accord establishes a program of unarmed aerial surveillance flights over the entire territory of its participants. Now, the treaty has more than 30 signatory states. Russia ratified the Treaty on Open Skies on May 26, 2001.