TARBELA – Pakistani and Russian special forces have been practicing drills and procedures for hostage rescue, cordon & search operations, heli rappelling and sky diving as part of Friendship 2020 joint military drills, dubbed as DRUZHBA-V.
The Pakistani military’s media wing tweeted a video of commandos taking part in different exercises at the Tarbela special operations training ground.
#Pakistan – Russian Federation Special Forces practicing drills & procedures for hostage rescue, cordon & search operations, heli rappelling and sky diving as part of #DRUZHBA-V pic.twitter.com/IA5DP7ena7
— DG ISPR (@OfficialDGISPR) November 15, 2020
In the video, the helicopters hovers at an altitude of 20 meters in the air while the commandos descended using a special rope. Following this, the paratroopers practiced defending the area of landing and repelling a terrorists’ attack. Mi-17 helicopters (the export version of Russia’s Mi-8s) operational with the Pakistani army aviation were involved in the exercise.
Overall, the exercise involves 150 personnel from the special operations company of the 49th combined arms army of Russia’s Southern Military District and Pakistani special operations forces.
‘Friendship’ joint Russian-Pakistani military drills have been held annually since 2016 alternately in each of the countries. This year, the manoeuvres involve over 70 servicemen of the special operations company of the Russian 49th combined arms army stationed in the Stavropol Region in southern Russia.
The drills are running in three stages. The first stage is taking place at the Pakistani Army’s Tarbela special operations training ground on November 9-14 and involves solo training and exercises as part of groups. The next two stages will take place at the Pakistani National Counter-Terrorism Center in Pabbi on November 16-19.
The training between Russia and Pakistan follows a similar training exercise that involved US and Ukrainian special operations forces (SOF) last month’s Fiction Urchin drills. The multinational exercises involved ten allied and partner nations and consisted of special forces operators conducting fast rope insertion and extraction systems.
