Russian army men to train at Indian mountain combat centre

By RIA Novosti,

Moscow : A delegation of Russian Ground Forces officers will train in mountain warfare during a two-week trip to India that started Monday, a spokesman for the Russian military said.


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Deputy commander Lt. Gen. Valery Yevnevich, along with officers from Russia’s mountain brigades and the Far Eastern Military Command officer training school, will visit a training centre in Jammu and Kashmir, India’s northernmost state.

“They will see how the Indian troops train for mountain operations,” Col. Igor Konashenkov of the team said.

The visit till July 30 was agreed in Moscow June 24 by India’s Chief of Army Staff, General Deepak Kapoor, and Russia’s Ground Forces Commander, Gen. Alexei Maslov, as part of an extensive military cooperation programme.

Russia began deploying two mountain brigades in the north Caucasus last year, near the mountainous border with Georgia. The two brigades are made up of contract soldiers, totalling about 4,500 personnel.

The Indian Army has 10 divisions dedicated to mountain warfare and another infantry division earmarked for high-altitude operations.

They are deployed in strategically important areas along the borders with Pakistan and China.

India and Russia have a long history of military cooperation, which goes some half a century back.

The existing Russian-Indian military-technical cooperation programme, which lasts until 2010, includes up to 200 projects worth about $18 billion, according to Russia’s defence ministry.

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