Russian-Tajik exercise on Tajik-Afghan border

Russian and Tajik border guards have launched a command and staff exercise on a territory run by the Panj Border Detachment controlling the Tajik-Afghan border.

According to the press service of the Russian Border Group to Tajikistan, the exercise is led by Colonel-General Alexei Kozhevnikov, the deputy Director of Russia's Federal Border Service.

The purpose of the exercise is to prepare and perform operations to track down and eliminate bandit units and to cut off the channels conveying drugs, weapons and explosives across the border. The border guards will also drill the ways to interact with the Tajik power structures in an effort to react to escalating tension on the Tajik-Afghan border.

The exercise involves the operations group of Russia's 201st Motorised Infantry Division, members of the Tajik government's State Border Protection Committee, and officials from the Tajik presidential Drug Control Agency - 300 servicemen, 30 pieces of armoured equipment and border aviation all in all. The exercise ends with combat training fire on June 27 on a border section controlled by the Panj Border Detachment.