Interfax,
Baranovichi. (Interfax-West) – Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko arrived on Saturday on the site of a current Belarussian-Russian military exercise.
“The exercise is purely defensive in character. None of the goals and tasks that have been set are aggressive in regard to any state,” the Belarussian presidential press service told Interfax.
The main declared task of the Clear Skies 2003 exercise, whose final phase is being held in Brest region in Belarus, is comprehensive training of new forms of strategic operations, ways of using air forces and air defenses, and interaction between units.
Russian air and ground forces are taking part in Clear Skies 2003 under the Collective Security Treaty of the Commonwealth of Independent States.
The exercise brings together about 8,600 troops, more than 100 pieces of armor, 46 rocket launchers, fighting vehicles, and pieces of artillery, 53 surface to air missile systems, 102 planes and helicopters, and about 2,000 pieces of other hardware, such as trucks.
