Russia and Belarus to set up joint Air Force and Air Defense combat training center.

A joint Belarusian-Russian combat training center for the Air Force and air defense forces will be set up in Belarus under the agreements reached by the defense ministries of both countries, the Belarusian Defense Ministry announced on March 16.

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Belarusian Su-30SM  (Picture source: Defense Ministry of Belarus)

"A joint combat training center for the Air Force and air defense forces is intended to be set up on the territory of the Republic of Belarus. The center will be used as the base to organize the joint training of the crews of Su-30SM aircraft, train Belarusian specialists in operating advanced surface-to-air missile systems operational in the Russian Armed Forces and also to jointly accomplish combat training tasks," the ministry said in its Telegram channel.

Minsk believes that the center’s work will help considerably raise the level of specialist training and train units of both the Air Force and air defense forces of Belarus and the Aerospace Force of Russia and strengthen the practical component of developing the Russia-Belarus Union State’s joint regional air defense system.

At their talks in Moscow on March 5, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and his Belarusian counterpart Viktor Khrenin made a decision that the joint combat training center on the territory of Belarus would be established in the Grodno Region. Two more joint centers will be set up in the Nizhny Novgorod and Kaliningrad Regions on the territory of Russia.

One of the joint centers will focus on the joint training of the ground forces, the Belarusian Defense Ministry informed.

"It will train motorized infantry and tank units of the states using the techniques based on the combat experience of the Russian Armed Forces," the ministry’s press office noted.

The joint training will help practice at a new level the elements of inter-operability of Belarusian military units with the regional grouping of the Russian Army’s forces and as a result boost the efficiency of its use, it said.

Russia and Belarus also defined the expediency of setting up a combat training center in the Kaliningrad Region based on the Western Military District’s Baltic Fleet, the ministry informed.

"This work will allow training Belarusian units on the premises of the Russian marine infantry’s military formations armed with BTR-82A armored personnel carriers," the ministry explained.

BTR-82A armored personnel carriers will arrive for the Belarusian armed forces this year, it said.

The center will also help use modern equipment for Belarusian specialists’ diver training, the Belarusian Defense Ministry said.

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