Pakistan, Russia to hold first military drill in 2016

Asia-Pacific, Europe, News January 23, 2016 , by IRIA No Comments

Russian ground forces will hold first ever military exercises with Pakistan in this year, Russian Army Commander-in-Chief Oleg Salyukov has said, according to TASS news agency.

The mountain drill with Pakistan will be Russian Army’s first of seven drills scheduled for the year 2016.

“As part of interaction with our foreign colleagues in 2016, we have scheduled seven joint exercises with the involvement of the relevant units of foreign states. The Army will hold the Russian-Vietnamese exercise and the first ever Russian-Pakistani special drills in mountainous terrain,” Salyukov said.

Also, joint anti-terror command and staff exercises of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization will be held, he said.

“The Peace Mission – 2016, the joint drills of peace-keeping forces of the Collective Security Treaty Organization codenamed Indestructible Brotherhood, the Frontier-2016 joint command and staff drills, the Indra-2016 Russian-Indian exercises and the Selenga-2016 Russian-Mongolian drills will be held,” the commander said.

A high-level Russian delegation headed by Mr Fomin Alexander Vasilyevich, Director of Federal Service for Military – Technical Cooperation of the Russian Federation (FSMTC), called on General Raheel Sharif, Chief of Army Staff (COAS) at General Headquarters on 21 January.The focus of the discussion was enhanced defence cooperation during the meeting.

Pakistan and India both joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in July last year. The group is dominated by Russia and China, and also includes former Soviet republics in Central Asia.