MOSCOW, May 9. /TASS/: The second Il-76 military transport plane with Russian servicemen who helped Italy fight the coronavirus landed at the Chkalovsky airfield near Moscow, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Saturday.
"The second Il-76 military transport plane of Russia’s Aerospace Force with servicemen and special equipment from the Defense Ministry’s combined taskforce, which implemented the tasks of providing assistance in fighting the spread of the coronavirus infection in the Italian Republic, has arrived at the Chkalovsky aerodrome (the Moscow Region)," the ministry said in a statement.
The first plane with the Russian military personnel returned to Russia from Italy in the evening of May 8. After their instant testing for the coronavirus, a welcome back ceremony was held at the Chkalovsky aerodrome with the participation of Russian Deputy Defense Minister, Chief of the Russian Armed Forces’ Main Military and Political Department Colonel-General Andrei Kartapolov.
The servicemen who especially distinguished themselves in accomplishing assigned missions received departmental rewards, the ministry said.
From March 22 to May 7, specialists of Russia’s radiation, chemical and biological protection corps fully disinfected jointly with the Italian military personnel boarding houses for elderly people and other facilities in about 100 communities in the region of Lombardy in northern Italy. They also disinfected 120 buildings and structures, over 1,200,000 square meters of internal premises and more than 500,000 square meters of paved roads.
From April 6, when a field hospital started to operate in Bergamo (one of the cities in the region of Lombardy severely affected by the pandemic), Russian military specialists received 115 coronavirus patients for medical treatment. By now, 76 patients have recovered and have been discharged from the hospital.
The Russian contingent in the hospital included eight doctor and nurse teams of 32 medical specialists who worked in three shifts round-the-clock.
