Russian Air Force to Take Part in Antiterror Drills in U.S.
RIA Novosti
MOSCOW, August 27
Russia’s servicemen will join efforts with their U.S. and Canadian colleagues during the Vigilant Eagle 2012 military drills to repel a hypothetical terrorist attack on a passenger airliner, the Russian Eastern Military District’s press service reported on Monday.
“The Vigilant Eagle 2012 exercises will be held on August 27-29. They are aimed at practicing interaction between the Russian armed forces and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in case of a terrorist attack on a passenger airliner,” the district’s spokesman Col. Alexander Gordeyev said.
The drills will be held for the third time. They first were held in 2010.
The exercises involve Russian, U.S. and Canadian armed forces units. Exercise headquarters are stationed in Colorado Springs (Colorado) and Anchorage (Alaska), as well as in the cities of Khabarovsk and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in the Russian Far East.
The Russian units will be led by Maj. Gen. Sergei Dronov, the commander of the Eastern Military District’s Third Air Force and Air Defense Command, and NORAD’s units by Joseph Bonnet III, NORAD’s training and exercise director.
“The first group led by Maj. Gen. Dronov will operate as part of the main headquarters in Colorado Springs,” Gordeyev said.
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