YEKATERINBURG, July 15. /ITAR-TASS/. Command and staff exercises codenamed 'Rubezh (Frontier) 2014' have started in Russian Ural’s Chelyabinsk region on Tuesday. Military forces from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan, as well as joint staff and secretariat of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) are participating in the drills. The war games are being held jointly with the Collective Rapid Response Forces in the Central Asian region.

An opening ceremony of the military exercises started with a dress parade of delegations, the press service of the Central Military District told ITAR-TASS. Military officials of four armies greeted servicemen, after that the anthems of the countries participating in military exercises were played and their national flags were hoisted at local Chebarkul firing range. “Military ceremony was highlighted with a concert given by a squadron of the Guards of Honor of Yekaterinburg garrison which showed arms drills,” the press service said.

After the ceremony participants in the war games started planning a special operation in a collective security region with due account of growing foreign challenges and threats. Servicemen will have to create an imaginary military and political, strategic and operative situation close to the real situation as much as possible. Representatives of Armenian and Belarusian military forces are participating in military exercises as observers.

“Our main task is to train a multinational staff to work synchronously according to common plans and scenarios and under common command,” chief of the co-ordination department of planning, use and training of military forces of the CSTO Joint Staff Lieutenant General Anatoly Yakovlev stated.

War games Rubezh are held once in two years. In 2012 military formations from the Collective Rapid Response Forces in the Central Asian region defeated a mocked base of gunmen at joint tactical military exercises Rubezh 2012 which were held at Chebarkul firing range. Then a mountain squadron and a mountain assault squadron from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, a Russian motor rifle battalion, a tank T-72B company and an artillery gun battery Nona-SVK participated in an operation at war games. Division Akatsiya, six helicopter gunships Mil Mi-24, Mi-8 and four warplanes Sukhoi Su-24 were also involved in military exercises. More than one thousand servicemen and around 100 units of military hardware participated in those war games.