Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
June 29, 2005, Wednesday
BEING FRIENDS AND BRANDISHING WEAPONS
SOURCE: Rossiiskaya Gazeta, June 26, 2005, pp. 1, 3
by Yuri Gavrilov
SERGEI IVANOV SPOKE OF MILITARY COOPERATION BETWEEN CIS COUNTRIES
“The prospects are good and long-term,” Defense Minister of Russia
Sergei Ivanov appraised the future of the Russian Nurek center in the
wake of the meeting of CIS Council of Defense Ministers in Dushanbe,
Tajikistan.
In fact, Ivanov’s words also apply to the relations between members
of the CIS Collective Security Treaty. Unfortunately, cooperation
among CIS countries as such is not that cloudless. The CIS United
Antiaircraft Defense System is the only viable structure after almost
15 years of its existence. No wonder 70% of the aggregate CIS
military budgets are spent on its improvement. Effectiveness of other
projects leaves much to be desired, while some of them are actually
history. Even the traditional exercise Combat Brotherhood is
gradually transforming into an element of combat training of six
countries of the CIS Collective Security Treaty Organization –
Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan.
This state of affairs has a negative effect on security of the
post-Soviet zone because, as the Russian minister put it yesterday,
“the united system should not be viewed as just a means of
antiaircraft defense. It enables us to tackle counter-terrorism tasks
and help CIS aviation in emergencies.”
Ivanov spoke of the legend of Combat Brotherhood’2005 in Dushanbe.
Its first phase began on Telemba, a testing site behind Baikal in
Russia. It will end on July 10. The next two weeks will be
particularly hard on pilots, antiaircraft crews, radars of the Baltic
Fleet, and their counterparts from the Byelorussian national army.
The exercise will move to Saryshagan in Kazakhstan (August 5 to 12),
and units of two more armies will join Russians and Byelorussians.
Culmination of the exercise will take place in late summer with
Armenian, Byelorussian, Russian, and Tajik crews drilling cooperation
and interaction. Representatives of Kazakhstan will play the role of
observers this year.
The CIS United Antiaircraft Defense System is not the only one to be
perfected. Modernization of Nurek made the complex truly unique now,
Ivanov said. The center detects objects less then a meter in size in
outer space at a distance of up to 40,000 kilometers. Scientists and
military involved in the modernization program were awarded recently.
The land the complex is built on became property of the Russian
Federation several months ago. Ivanov even promised the status of a
military base for the 201st Russian Motorized Infantry Division
quartered in Tajikistan. It will happen this autumn, he said.
“The tasks and personnel of the base have been decided already,”
Ivanov said. “Completion of construction of the necessary
infrastructure is under way. We invest substantial sums in capital
construction and armament. After all, we all know the region the base
will operate in and the tasks it will have to perform – including
interaction with the Tajik Defense Ministry and border guards.”
Ivanov signed the agreement and acts on transfer of movables of the
new military structure, yesterday.