Russian Paratroopers Plan 'Intense Use' of Western Border Training Areas

Russian paratroopers will extensively use training areas located along its western borders for combat training missions, Airborne Forces Commander Col. Gen. Vladimir Shamanov said Friday.

PSKOV (Sputnik) – The commander stressed that Russian Airborne Forces units act on the basis of a "tensions in the Baltics, which tend to heighten the situation."

The Strugi Krasnye training ground and other simiilar facilities in the Western military district are to be used intensively for combat training, Shamanov said.

"For example, the [US Army] Stryker mechanized infantry battalion is being redeployed there, specifically in Lithuania," Shamanov asserted.

He positively assessed the 76th Guards Air Assault Division’s performance at drills wrapping up in Pskov Region. The formation actively engaged with aviation units, the Federal Security Service, border troops, as well as units of the Interior and Emergencies ministries.

"All this suggests that joint preparation and task execution in the immediate vicinity of the state border is subject to continuous training, monitoring and corresponding asymmetric action," Shamanov asserted.

Over 2,500 troops worked out a series of exercises in the year’s first divisional command-and-staff drills that began on Monday. Soldiers performed airfield captures, held mass parachute- and air-landings, as well as deep-penetration raids on unfamiliar terrain.

The drills wrap up on Saturday.