The closing ceremony was attended by the commanders of the Airborne Forces, Colonel-General Andrei Serdyukov and the paratroopers of the Egyptian Armed Forces, Divisional General Atif Ibrahim Mady
CAIRO, October 28. /tass/. The fifth joint tactical exercises of the paratroopers of Russia and Egypt "Defenders of Friendship - 2021", which took place on October 17 with the participation of military transport aircraft of the two countries, ended near Cairo. The closing ceremony was held at the base of the paratroopers of the Arab Republic near the city of Inshas, 60 km east of the Egyptian capital, the Department of Information and Mass Communications of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation told TASS.
It was attended by the commanders of the Airborne Troops (airborne forces), Colonel-General Andrey Serdyukov and the paratroopers of the Egyptian Armed Forces, Divisional General Atif Ibrahim Mady, who congratulated the servicemen on the successful completion of the exercises, thanking them for their high professional training. On the parade ground of the ARE parachute brigade, a "friendship jump" was made on controlled parachutes of the "wing" type with the state flags of Russia and Egypt, the flags of the Russian Airborne Forces and the Egyptian Airborne Forces.
"Congratulations to everyone on the end of the joint tactical exercise with landing and live firing. I especially want to emphasize that the servicemen of the armed forces of Russia and Egypt showed high professional training during joint exercises, and the topic of these exercises testifies to the importance of working out such joint actions to combat international terrorism," Colonel-General Serdyukov said during the ceremony. - First of all, I want to thank the commander of the Paratroopers of the Egyptian Armed Forces for the excellent organization of the joint exercise. We will definitely continue our cooperation and next year we will conduct the same exercise on the territory of the Russian Federation. I thank all the servicemen for their training, courage, bravery and high training," Colonel-General Serdyukov stressed."
In turn, the Egyptian general stated that the Defenders of Friendship - 2021 achieved all their goals. "Now that they are over, we will study all the positive aspects and shortcomings so that the upcoming exercises in Russia will be even better," General Mady stressed.
At the final military sports festival, a military orchestra and an ensemble of the Egyptian army performed in front of the participants of the tactical exercise. At the end of the concert program, the song and dance ensemble of the Airborne Troops performed the main song of the Airborne Forces - "Blue".
History of the exercises
The joint Russian-Egyptian tactical exercise "Defenders of Friendship" was held for the fifth time this year. In total, from the Airborne Troops of Russia and the paratroopers of the Armed forces of the ARE, a combined unit with a total number of more than 500 military personnel was involved in them, as well as Il-76MD aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces and C-130 Hercules, Casa C-295, Chinook heavy military transport helicopters, Mi-17 helicopters and Commandos of the Egyptian Air Force, Hummer and TGL army jeeps.
For the first time, Russian and Egyptian paratroopers practiced joint tactical actions near the city of Alexandria in the Arab Republic in 2016. In 2017, a joint exercise was held in the Krasnodar Territory on the basis of the Novorossiysk Guards Airborne Assault Mountain Unit of Airborne Troops. In 2018, in Egypt, the participants of the joint exercise honed their skills at the parachute training ground near Cairo. In 2019, for the first time, servicemen of the special operations forces of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus took part in joint exercises. The exercise took place at the Dubrovichi training ground of the Tula Guards Airborne Unit in the Ryazan region.
