India, Russia to hold terror combat exercise

NEW DELHI: The Indian and Russian armies are gearing up to launch a large counter-terrorism combat exercise , ‘ Indra’ , at Chaubattia near Ranikhet from next week. India may have had a long-standing defence relationship with Russia, notching up as it has military imports worth almost $40 billion from Moscow since the 1960s, but joint exercises between the two have been far and few between.

The first edition of Indra was conducted at the Mahajan ranges in 2005, while the second was conducted at Pskov in Russia in 2007. In contrast, the most visible symbol of the now expansive Indo-US military ties has been the flurry of joint combat exercises — over 50 in the last seven years — between the two nations . The third edition of the battalion-level Indra exercise will see 257 Russian soldiers engage in counterterrorism drills in a semiurbanised scenario with Indian soldiers at Chaubattia from October 16 to 23.

The exercise will come soon after defence minister A K Antony and his Russian counterpart Anatoly Serdyukov discuss ways to enhance bilateral cooperation during the 10th India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Military Technical Cooperation on Thursday.