ASTANA, January 31. /ITAR-TASS/. Kazakhstan's armed forces will receive enough S-300 antiaircraft missile systems this year to protect the air space, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Friday.
"An important element of our agreements is that already this year we will deliver enough S-300 complexes to Kazakhstan's armed forces to ensure protection of the airspace," he told a briefing, commenting on results of the meeting with his Kazakh counterpart Adilbek Dzhaksybekov.
The Kazakh defense minister noted that cooperation between the two countries in the military area was developing dynamically, including cooperation to develop a joint air defense system. The turnover of military products grew to 140 million dollars last year, he noted.
Joint military drills
The sides also discussed the use of the Collective Security Treaty Organization's Collective Rapid Reaction Force (CSTO CRPF) in Kazakhstan. Exercises are planned for this year with the participation of CSTO member countries, first of all Russia and Kazakhstan, Dzhaksybekov said.
The Kazakh Defense Ministry reported that joint exercises Cooperation 2014 with the participation of the CSTO CRRF will be held on the Spassk training ground, Kazakhstan’s Karaganda region, from August 18 to 22 this year.
Joint military drills are an important aspect of military cooperation between Russia and Kazakhstan, stressed Shoigu.
“On the one hand, military exercises will be more large-scale this year, on the other hand, they will be more practical,” Shoigu said. “We have several threats we are certainly concerned about, I mean those to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and those collective forces that exist today,” he noted.
“We should make sure that we are prepared to give a response to these threats, first of all, I refer to everything related to Afghanistan,” he added.
“This year coalition forces will be withdrawn from Afghanistan. We cannot be ignorant of this, because we believe that a serious program for further stabilization of the situation in Afghanistan is needed before doing this,” Shoigu said.
As for cooperation with Kazakhstan, he noted that “our cooperation is strategic.” “We continue to step up volume of this cooperation. It is designed not only for today. We tackle not only current risks, but we are also working for the future, next 15-20 years,” he said.