CSTO Rapid Deployment Force begins exercise in Kyrgyzstan

BISHKEK, September 7. /TASS/. The Rapid Deployment Force of the Collective Security Treaty organization began an exercise in Kyrgyzstan on Tuesday, the press center of the exercise has said. "On September 7, an opening ceremony of the joint exercise by the Central Asian Region's Collective Rapid Deployment Force of the Collective Security Treaty Organization Rubezh-2021 took place at the training center Edelweiss of Kyrgyzstan's Defense Ministry," the news release runs. The participants will practice preparations for and conduct of combat operations to eliminate intrusions by illegal armed gangs. Participating in the exercise are more than one thousand troops from Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, as well as 150 pieces of military equipment: tanks, armored personnel carriers, mechanized infantry combat vehicles, special vehicles Tigr, artillery, Sukhoi-30SM fighters, Sukhoi-25 fighter-bombers and Mi-8 helicopters. Kyrgyzstan delegated career personnel of the National State Security Committee and Emergencies Ministry for participation in the exercise. "The military-political situation in the CSTO zone of responsibility remains complicated. The most unfavorable state of affairs is in the Central Asian Region in the context of the Taliban movement's rise to power in Afghanistan, bordering on Tajikistan, and the remaining high level of activity by international terrorism and religious extremism (Taliban is outlawed in Russia - TASS)," the press center quotes the CSTO Joint Staff Anatoly Sidorov as saying. He recalled that this year the Collective Rapid Reaction Force of the Central Asian Region would turn 20 later this year. "For all these years the force was gaining strength and developing steadily. Operative and combat training by the force's command and units is geared to enhancing the readiness for repelling external military aggression," Sidorov said. According to the news release, the main purposes of the Rubezh-2021 exercise are to let CSTO command centers' staff improve the skills of organizing combat operations and commanding the subordinate forces, as well as to better cooperation by Collective Rapid Reaction Force units in coping with their tasks in the course of joint operations. The Central Asian Region's Collective Rapid Reaction Force numbers 5,000. Its mission is to maintain the military security of CSTO member-states, participate in operations to repel foreign military aggression and conduct joint counter-terrorist operations. The force may have different composition, structure and reinforcements, including aircraft. Photo by Nozim Kalandarov/TASS Read more