Over 400 personnel of the Indian Army, Indian Air Force and Indian Navy in addition to two IL 76 aircraft, one frigate and corvette each from the Navy today left the country to take part in INDRA 2017--the first ever Tri Services Joint Exercise between Indian and Russian Armed Forces which will be conducted in the Eastern Military District of Russia from October 19 to 29.

Exercise INDRA in its previous nine avatars has been conducted as a single service exercise alternately between the two countries. The year 2017 marks a major milestone as this exercise has been upgraded to involve all the three Services of the Armed Forces (Army, Navy & Air Force), which further accentuates the importance of Joint Services in the present world environment.

Exercise INDRA-2017 will be conducted at the 249th Combined Army Range Sergeevisky and in the Sea of Japan near Vladivostok. The Indian contingent will comprise of 350 personnel from Army, 80 from Air Force, two IL 76 aircraft and one Frigate and Corvette each from the Navy. The Russian Federation Armed Forces will be represented by approximately 1000 troops of the 5th Army, Marines and Ships of Pacific Fleet and aircraft from Eastern Military District.

Addressing the Indian Contingent today, Lt Gen Satish Dua reminded them of the importance of the upcoming Exercise which will provide an opportunity to the armed forces of both countries to train in counter terrorism operations in a multinational scenario in a joint tri-service environment. The scope of the exercise includes professional interactions, establishment of joint command and control structures between the Indian & Russian forces and elimination of terrorist threat in a multinational environment under the UN mandate.

Exercise INDRA-2017 is aimed at strengthening mutual confidence, inter-operability and enable sharing of best practices between both the armed forces. It will be a landmark event in the history of Indo-Russian defence cooperation and is expected to give the Indo-Russian defence cooperation a major boost.