MOSCOW, April 29. /TASS/: Over 300,000 troops and 35,000 weapon systems participated in combat readiness inspections across Russia, Chief of the Russian General Staff Army General Valery Gerasimov said on Thursday.
"Overall, the inspections involved more than 300,000 personnel and 35,000 items of armament, military and special hardware along with 180 warships and vessels and about 900 aircraft, including 15 long-range and 40 military transport planes," the General Staff chief specified.
Over the course of two weeks, more than 4,000 various exercises and drills were held with the troops of military districts, the forces of the Northern Fleet and military units and formations of the Russian Armed Forces’ military branches at 101 training grounds, Gerasimov said.
"Over 500 training facilities were involved. The drills ran on the entire territory of the Russian Federation," the army general said.
During the combat readiness inspections, the troops conducted redeployments by the combined method to ranges of over 3,500 km and were mostly amassed at unknown practice ranges for accomplishing combat training tasks, the chief of the Russian General Staff said.
"A naval group of 15 Caspian Flotilla warships made an inter-fleet transit from the Caspian to the Black Sea, covering a distance of over 1,300 km. The airborne troops practiced preparing for and operating as part of a multiservice force grouping of forces (troops) in the southwestern strategic area. They carried out airborne assaults to a distance of 1,500 km," Gerasimov said.
