About 2,000 civil aircraft were in midair during recent aerospace drill in Russia
MOSCOW. June 4 (Interfax) - Russia's Aerospace Forces got confronted with an extremely difficult situation during a recent surprise inspection, while selecting hostile aircraft from a multitude of civilian passenger planes flying over the Central Industrial Region, Aerospace Forces Commander Maj. Gen. Alexander Golovko told the media.
"The maneuver operation to rebuff a massive air attack was proceeding in a very complicated air situation, where civilian aircraft remained in midair alongside military aircraft involved in the drill which needed to be identified as possible targets," he said.
Aerospace Forces spokesman Col. Alexei Zolotukhin said about 2,000 civilian aircraft were flying over the Central Industrial District during the drill, among them foreign planes, which had no friend-or-foe identification system used in Russia. All this was a major hurdle in the exercise, he said.
