From: Rick Rozoff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------------------------- An independent Russian analyst...said the importance of the exercise - which follows a first such exercise involving Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan in 1998 - was "more political than military." "The alliance with Armenia is aimed directly at stemming the influence of Turkey." Russian, CIS Air Defense Exercises Aim to Boost Former Soviet Borders September 2, 2001 Agence France Presse MOSCOW. Russia staged joint anti-aircraft practice with troops from Armenia, Belarus and Tajikistan Thursday in exercises aimed at strengthening the former Soviet Union's boundaries, experts said. The exercises at Ashuluk, in the southern Russian region of Astrakhan, involved 500 soldiers who fired S-125 and S-300 anti-aircraft batteries, along with 1,500 support personnel and several Su-27 fighter planes, Su-24 fighter-bombers and Su-25 assault planes. High-ranking defense officials from Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaidjan, Turkmenistan and Ukraine were also present as observers. A Western military expert said the maneuvers, involving Russia's most advanced air defense system, deployed "considerable air and ground-to-air resources, but the most significant thing was the degree of coordination they set up." The exercise, dubbed Defense Commonwealth-2001, represents "a swing back of the pendulum" following the breaking off of military ties when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, he said. An independent Russian analyst, Pavel Felgenhauer, said the importance of the exercise -- which follows a first such exercise involving Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan in 1998 -- was "more political than military." Moscow's defense strategy was based on close cooperation with three in particular of its former Soviet allies -- Belarus, Armenia and Tajikistan, he said. Belarus is closest politically to Russia, forms part of an embryonic union with Russia, and last week announced it would form a joint air defense system under unified command at Minsk, effective from October. "The alliance with Armenia is aimed directly at stemming the influence of Turkey," Felgenhauer said. Tajikistan, where by agreement with Dushanbe Moscow already has troops deployed defending the border with Afghanistan, is seen as defending central Asia's "soft underbelly." "These exercises are more complex than previously, and are being carried out with a greater sense of realism, with real-time decision-making," another analyst, Yury Gladkyevich, said. "There will be no return to the Soviet Union, but for geopolitical reasons the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States need to unite," he said, referring to the loose association of former Soviet republics (minus the Baltic states) formed after the Soviet Union collapsed. On Russia's southern flank, only Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine appear determined to go it alone. Budgetary constraints will also affect the development of military cooperation, the head of Russia's airforce General Anatoly Kornukov said, announcing that henceforth Defense Commonwealth exercises would be held every two years. However as the Western expert observed, "there are a growing number of bilateral exercises" between Russia and its former allied republics. Kornukov said 20 such maneuvers would take place in 2002. _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
