“Shield of the Union”: preparations have begun for Russian-Belarusian military exercises

The General Staffs of Belarus and the Russian Federation today, October 24, began preparations for the joint exercise “Union Shield-2019,” PolitNavigator correspondent reports.

This was announced by Belarusian Defense Minister Andrei Ravkov during a joint meeting of representatives of the two countries' defense ministries in Minsk, BELTA reports.

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“The General Staffs have begun preparations for the Union Shield 2019 exercise. It will be the main event of joint training of military command and control bodies and troops in 2019 and will ensure further improvement of the current system for ensuring the military security of the Union State,” Ravkov said.

Let us note that the next joint military exercises are planned to take place on Russian territory.

For the first time, the Russian-Belarusian exercise “Union Shield” took place on June 17-25, 2006 on the territory of Belarus (Obuz-Lesnovsky training ground, Brest region). In 2006, representatives of the CSTO joint headquarters also took part in the exercises to test the Unified Air Defense System of Russia and Belarus. Since 2009, joint military exercises have been held once every two years - “Zapad” mostly on the territory of Belarus and “Union Shield” on the territory of Russia.

Last year, the “Zapad-2017” exercises took place on the territory of Belarus; before that, the “Union Shield-2015” exercises took place on the territory of Russia, in particular at the training grounds of the Western Military District (ZVL), located in the Leningrad and Pskov regions.