The fifth joint tactical exercise of Russian and Egyptian paratroopers "Defenders of Friendship - 2021", held since October 17 with the participation of military transport aircraft of the two countries, ended near Cairo. The closing ceremony was held at the Arab Republic's paratroopers' base near the town of Inshas, 60 km east of the Egyptian capital, the Russian defense ministry's Department of information and mass communications told TASS.
Colonel general Andrei Serdyukov, commander of the Airborne forces (VDV), and divisional general Atif Ibrahim Mady, commander of the paratroopers of the Egyptian armed forces, participated in it and congratulated the servicemen on the successful completion of the exercise, thanking them for their high professional skills. The paratrooper brigade of the ARE performed a "friendship jump" on wing-type guided parachutes with the national flags of Russia and Egypt, the flags of the Russian airborne troops and the flags of the Egyptian airborne troops.
"I congratulate everyone on the end of the joint tactical exercise with landing and live firing. I especially want to emphasize that the servicemen of the Russian and Egyptian armed forces showed high professional training during the joint exercises, and the topic of these exercises shows the importance of practicing such joint actions in the fight against international terrorism," colonel general Serdyukov said during the ceremony. - "First of all I would like to thank the commander of the paratroopers of the Egyptian AF for the excellent organization of the joint exercise. We will definitely continue our cooperation and next year we will conduct the same exercise in Russia. I thank all the soldiers for their skills, courage, bravery and high preparation," said Serdyukov.
In turn, the Egyptian general stated that the Defenders of Friendship - 2021 achieved all their goals. "Now that they are over, we will study all the positive points and shortcomings so that the upcoming exercises in Russia will be even better," general Mady stressed.
At the final military-sports celebration, the military band and the Egyptian army ensemble performed for the participants of the tactical exercise. At the end of the concert program the song and dance group of the airborne troops performed the main song of the airborne troops - "Sineva".
History of exercises
This year's joint Russian-Egyptian tactical exercise " Defenders of Friendship" was held for the fifth time. All together Russian Airborne forces and parachute troops of Egyptian armed forces took part in them, a combined unit of more than 500 servicemen, as well as aircraft Il-76MD of Russian Air Force and C-130 Hercules, Casa C-295, heavy military transport helicopters Chinook, Mi-17 and Egyptian Commando helicopters, army jeeps Hummer and TGL.
For the first time, Russian and Egyptian paratroopers practiced joint tactical actions near the city of Alexandria in the Arab Republic in 2016. In 2017, the joint exercise was held in the Krasnodar region at the Novorossiysk guards airborne assault mountain unit of the VDV. In 2018 in Egypt, participants in the joint exercise honed their skills at the paratrooper compound near Cairo. In 2019, for the first time, members of special operations forces of the armed forces of the Republic of Belarus took part in a joint exercise. The exercise took place at the Dubrovichi range of the Tula guards airborne unit in the Ryazan region.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation
Based on materials from TASS