New Delhi: About 250 Indian military personnel from the Army, Navy and Air Force will leave for Russia for the tactical bilateral ‘Indra-2021’ exercise with the Russian military, slated from August 1-15. It will be followed by another exercise within a month when the Indian and Pakistani armies will jointly participate.
“The exact details of how and when the Indian forces will leave, including the military hardware they will use, has not been finalized yet”, a senior Indian military source told ETV Bharat.
“The Indra-2021 joint Russian-Indian military drills will take place at the Southern Military District’s Prudboi training ground in the Volgograd Region on August 1-15 this year. The drills will involve about 250 servicemen of the Armed Forces of India and around 250 personnel of the Southern Military District,” the press office of the Southern Military District said in a statement on Tuesday.
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The dates were finalized after a meeting on Tuesday between the two sides on the organization of planning and preparation of the international Russian-Indian tactical exercise Indra-2021 was held in Volgograd.
The members of the delegations of the two countries approved the dates, the plan and scenario of the exercise, the composition of forces and means, the procedure for crossing the state border, and the organization of logistics.
Within a month, Russia will also host another exercise in which India, Pakistan, Russia, Armenia, Algeria and Kazakhstan will participate. Final details of this exercise are yet to emerge.
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'Exercise Indra' began in 2003 as a bilateral naval exercise between India and Russia. The joint exercise received a major upgrade in 2017 when it assumed a tri-services scope with corresponding maturity and gradual increase in scope, complexity and level of participation.
The expansion in scope was a result of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Russia visit in June when both countries had decided to "upgrade and intensify" defence cooperation through joint manufacture, co-production and co-development of key military hardware and equipment.
Besides being a very effective confidence-building measure, the broad aims of 'Exercise Indra' are of greater interoperability of operational, communication-related, logistical and other procedural aspects.
