Russia sends military specialists to Republic of the Congo - document
MOSCOW. May 23 (Interfax) - Russia and the Republic of the Congo have agreed on sending Russian military specialists to this country.
The relevant contract was signed following Russian-Congolese talks on Thursday, an Interfax correspondent reported.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told journalists following the signature ceremony that military specialists are working in the republic.
Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin told journalists that the Republic of the Congo has had a lot of Russian-made military and special hardware since the Soviet times, and some of it might yet serve for a long time for the Congo's defense capability.
"This includes armored and lightly-armored hardware, rocket and conventional artillery, helicopters and so on. This hardware certainly requires professional operation, service, maintenance, repairs, and modernization," Fomin said.
Russian specialists will train Congolese specialists and help them repair this hardware, he said.
"This is a new contract, but, on the whole, this is continuing a very nice story called military-technical cooperation, which was started some time ago," he said.