The Combat Commonwealth-2007 exercise will involve Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, and will be held in four stages.
"The first stage of the exercise will be held at the Telemba training ground [East Siberia] to engage Russian and Belarusian Air Force and Air Defense troops as well as Russia's Baltic Fleet," Alexander Drobyshevsky said.
The second stage will be held at the Ashuluk training ground in Russia's Astrakhan Region near the Caspian Sea, in the second half of August. It will involve Russian, Armenian, Belarusian and Kyrgyz forces.
The third and fourth stages will take place at Kazakh and Uzbek training grounds in August-September.
Conducted annually, such exercises are part of efforts to build an integrated security system for the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a loose association of former Soviet republics. An integrated air defense network was set up by 10 CIS-member countries on February 10, 1995, but so far exists only on paper.
