The crews of fighter jets deployed in Russia's Western Military Districts have been placed on high alert as part of surprise combat drills ordered by Russian President and Supreme Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Putin on Feb. 26, the Defense Ministry said.
“Our fighter jets are constantly patrolling the airspace over border
districts,” the ministry said in a press release, seen by Interfax-AVN
on Thursday.
“As soon as they were put on high alert, aviation units of the
Western Military District redeployed to their operative air fields,” it
said.
At the moment, “the district’s bombers are tackling combat training
tasks targeting an imaginary adversary at aviation training ranges,” the
ministry said.
Surprise military drills aimed at assessing the combat readiness of
soldiers in Russia’s Western and Central Military Districts. In
addition, the Airborne Troops command were launched on Feb. 26 on
orders issued by Putin.
Up to 150,000 personnel, 90 airplanes, over 120 helicopters, up to
880 tanks, over 1,200 units of military hardware and up to 80 ships and
vessels will be involved in the exercises.
Russia’s Western neighbors have already expressed their concern over
the drills. In particular, Lithuanian Deputy Defense Minister Marijus
Velicka said that he was troubled by this inspection of combat readiness
announced by the Russian Armed Forces.
“Russia is a sovereign state and it can hold such surprise drills
whenever it pleases, but I am concerned that all this is happing not far
from its border with Lithuania,” he told reporters in Brussels on Wednesday evening.
Russia’s current actions are not accidental, Velicka said.
“Since the political situation in Ukraine is not stable today, such
exercises come as a justified cause for concern that the probability of
such events being just a coincidence is quite small. These events have
probably been prompted by certain developments,” he said.
