MOSCOW, May 08. /ITAR-TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin together with the leaders of a number of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) member countries on Thursday watched scheduled Russian military command and control drills.

The military in the exercise demonstrated to the Commander-In-Chief of the Russian Armed Forces the engagement of separate missile and artillery forces and military units, aviation and air defense for the destruction of ground force groupings and rebuffing a massive missile and air strike of the enemy, as well as delivering a massive retaliatory counter-strike by nuclear deterrence forces and rebuffing the enemy’s nuclear strike by the missile defense system of the city of Moscow.

The drills were organized to check the Russian Armed Forces’ command and control system, the reliability of transmission of training orders and signals from the Russian National Defense Control Center to military districts to the command posts of military formations and units, to the Strategic Missile Forces (RVSN), to the aerospace defense forces and long-range aviation command.

The exercise involved strategic bombers, nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines of the Pacific and Northern Fleets, strategic land-based mobile missile systems, combat power of the aerospace defense.

The drills also involved missile and artillery forces of the Southern and Central Military Districts.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon and President of Kyrgyzstan Almazbek Atambayev were watching the exercise together with Putin from the Russian National Defense Control Center.