Moscow. August 18. INTERFAX-Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that he and the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation Valery Gerasimov on T-80 and T-72 tanks checked the routes of the profile competition, which will be held as part of the Army International Games (ArMI)-2021.
"We personally checked the readiness of the Tank Biathlon track with the Chief of the General Staff. I was driving the T80, and he was driving the T72, " Shoigu said in an interview published by the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper ("KZ") on Wednesday.
He said that this year the total number of participants of the ArMI, taking into account the qualifying stages in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, amounted to more than 459 thousand people.
"These are pilots, tankers, sailors, motorized skirmishers, paratroopers, drivers of combat vehicles, technicians, operators of air defense systems, snipers, doctors... Almost all those who are intended for conducting military operations," the minister said.
At the same time, he noted: in order to give a chance to win to the largest possible number of participants, to make the ARMY mass, the Ministry of Defense "did not follow the path of high-achievement sports".
"This is our principled position. This is what is written in the regulations on these competitions: the winner of the first place next year can participate in the Games only as an instructor. That is, every year we have new crews, new calculations and departments fighting for victory, " Shoigu said, stressing that there are "no multiple champions here and there should not be".
"The winners of the ArMI should show their skills already in other places. Like, for example, our pilots in Syria. Or tankers. After all, not even the winner, but the prize-winner of the tank biathlon in one of the night battles burned six enemy tanks (this happened in Syria near Palmyra - "KZ").
