Russia, Central Asian States to Hold Air Defense Drills

Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan will conduct joint command-and-staff air defense drills on October 5-16, the Kyrgyz Defense Ministry said on Thursday.

The Chistoye Nebo (Clear Sky) 2012 exercise will be held in Kyrgyz, Tajik and Kazakh airspace and involve the interception of cruise missiles.

Russia will be represented by a group of experts from Air Force staff and MiG-31 Foxhound interceptors and an A-50 Mainstay AWACS plane deployed at the Kant airbase in Kyrgyzstan.

Kazakhstan’s three airbases will host the active phase of the drills. The former Soviet republic will also deploy five air defense brigades and command staff.

In line with the concept of the exercises, Kyrgyzstan will play the role of a ‘designated adversary’ with its L-39 Albatros combat trainers and Su-25 Frogfoot ground attack aircraft.

Tajikistan will be represented by Air Force command staff.

The exercises will be held as part of military cooperation among countries-members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and emphasize the air defense of the bloc from the southern direction.

KKT-R? An alternative route to relieve the road from Uzbekistan to the Baltic

The " reverse Kazakhstan-Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan (R-KKT) trucking route "is part of the Northern Distribution Network , the network of multimodal overland road and rail which will allow exfiltration of NATO equipment.

The R-KTT passes, as its name indicates, by Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan before entering Russia. But she avoids Uzbekistan, which the authorities are very demanding in terms of rights of way.

This road is more expensive than the way south through Pakistan (for a 20-foot container, the extra cost would be $ 10 000 or $ 18 000. However, the air costs $ 40 000 per container according to the U.S. Transportation Command ). This is also the longest: forwarders estimate that the transit time between Afghanistan and the Baltic ports is around 120 days, against 80 by Pakistan.

Boon to private. A U.S. firm is already well established on the R-KKT; it comes to FMN Logistics has begun to repatriate the material U.S. 4 months ago, with the first convoy of 20 trucks of 25t. Others followed, such as Move One (Dubai), already present in Central Asia.