Russian-Armenian Military Forces Hold Joint Military Exercises

YEREVAN — More than 1,500 Armenian and Russian soldiers simulated combat operations during joint military exercises in Armenia that ended on Wednesday.

The nine-day exercises held at the Bagramian training ground 50 kilometers west of Yerevan involved troops as well as hundreds of tanks, armored vehicles and artillery systems making up a joint Russian-Armenian military force. Warplanes and helicopter gunships also took part in them.

Under the official scenario of the war games, the participating troops repelled an imaginary enemy that invaded Armenia.

The final session of the drills was watched by Armenia’s Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan and a senior official from Russia’s Southern Military District, Major General Ramil Gilyazov. Gilyazov praised them, saying that the Russian-Armenian United Grouping of Troops successfully used new methods of combat training.

The joint unit originally set up in 2000 consists of soldiers from the Armenian army’s Fifth Corps and the Russian military base in Armenia. Moscow and Yerevan signed in November 2016 an agreement designed to upgrade its mission and ascertain its command-and-control structure.