India, Russia to show military might

Close on the heels of the largest-ever Russia-China military manoeuvres, India and Russia on Friday said they propose to hold large-scale air and land exercises in the Thar Desert in mid-October, with the accent on anti-terrorism.

The week-long exercises involving specialised para-forces from the two countries would 'seek to strike an interoperability' between the land forces of the two countries for possible future operations under international peacekeeping banner in third countries, with the focus on volatile Central Asian region, highly placed army sources said.

In the exercises, which would entail blitzkrieg style anti-terrorist commando operations with the use of aircraft and helicopters, a Russian specialised para battalion and an

Indian Para battalion would be deployed, the sources said.

After holding anti-terrorist war games with Indian forces, Russia proposes to hold similar war games with the Uzbekistan army, sources said.

Russian forces would be deploying specialised anti-terror infantry weapons like sniper guns, rapid firing machine guns, anti-material rifles as well as long distance specialised rockets during the exercises.

Indian and Russian forces would have the advantage of commonality of weapons during the exercises as Indian army's frontline equipment is still of Russian make.