This post is also available in: العربية (Arabic) اردو (Urdu)
When the first Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan was invited by the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to Moscow just after the three years of establishment of Pakistan, he gave him a cold shoulder and opted to visit Washington! The tension between Moscow and Islamabad turned intense when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan for the next nine years and Pakistan trained the different Mujahideen groups who were fighting against the Soviets in 1979. Pakistan-Russia relationship was in a cold storage until Moscow took a great initiative in 2010 and invited Pakistan to Quadripartite Summit, Sochi.
From 2012 till now, a lot of things have been changed between the two countries. Defense Minister and Army Chiefs of both the countries have visited each other, a number of military cooperation agreements have been signed along with joint military exercises. The recent joint training session is the third exercise between the two countries, the first exercise was held in Pakistan in 2016 while the second was held in Russia in 2017. DG ISPR Major General Ghafoor shared the details of the exercise in a tweet. He wrote that,
Russian Army Contingent arrived in Pakistan to participate in Pak-Russia Joint Training Excercise ‘Druzhba-III’. This is 3rd exercise as part of Pak-Russia bilateral training cooperation. The 1st Exercise was held in Pakistan during 2016 while 2nd in Russia during 2017.
Check out his tweet!
According to Vadim Astafyev, head of the Press Service of the Russian Southern Military District, more than 70 troopers from Russia’s southern military district will participate in the drills. Druzbha-III, 15-day Pakistan-Russian joint military training exercise, will be held at the National Counter-Terrorism Center in Pabbi, KPK. Druzhba-III will include training sessions on the destruction of conditional fighters (terrorists). At least 70 mountain shooters from Karachay-Cherkessia are taking part in the drills. The training session will be held at an altitude of 1.4 thousand meters above sea level.
On Friday, a video and some pictures of the ongoing training session went viral on social media. It can be seen in the video how difficult the drills are!
Watch The Complete Video Here!
Here Are The Pictures Of The Intense Drill!
Amazing, isn’t it?
*goosebumps*
Friendship 2018 is an episode of the Pakistan-Russia joint military exercise first held in 2016. In 2017, the drills held in the North Caucasus at an altitude of 2,300 meters above sea level in which more than 200 servicemen took part. It is good to see that Pakistan-Russia ties are heading in the right direction.
