ASTANA, February 20. /TASS/. The Defense Ministry of Kazakhstan is holding a planned air defense and air policing exercise together with Russia from February 2 to March 10, the Kazakh Defense Ministry said.

"In accordance with the schedule of joint events of the Unified Regional Air Defense System of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation, a scheduled exercise of air defense troops is taking place from February 20 to March 10," the ministry said in a statement.

"The exercise is aimed at working on detecting aerial targets, intercepting aircraft that violate sovereign airspace, and forcing them to land at designated airports," the statement reads.

According to the ministry, the scheduled exercise is aimed at "increasing the level of combat cohesion, skills and readiness of on-duty air defenses."

In this regard, the ministry requested citizens and the media to rely only on official sources of information and refrain from disseminating unverified reports.