30 March 2013, 21:00
Georgia holds joint exercises with the USA named "Agile Spirit-2013"
The military training ground in Vaziani near Tbilisi holds the exercises "Agile Spirit-2013"; they began on March 11 and will end on April 5. The active phase of the exercises was completed on March 29.
The exercises are performed by 350 soldiers of the US Marine Corps and the 23rd Battalion of the Second Infantry Brigade of the Armed Forces of Georgia. Georgian and American units were jointly performing combat missions under a conventional scenario, namely, search, cordon, convoy and humanitarian operations.
According to the press service of the Ministry of Defence (MoD), which is quoted by "News Georgia", the militaries performed the combat tasks that are performed during the ISAF operation in Afghanistan.
"In the future we plan to conduct further large-scale exercises at the level of brigade and, possibly, jointly with partner countries in the region," the "Georgia Online" quotes the comment of the Defence Minister Irakli Alasaniya.
Russia made no comment on the exercises underway in Georgia. Meanwhile, in the area of the Black Sea shore, large-scale military exercises were held by the Russian MoD. They began on March 28 and involved 36 ships from Sebastopol and Novorossiisk, and aviation. The active part of the exercises was completed on March 30. The exercises were criticized the Georgian Foreign Ministry, which stated that they were disproportionate to the anticipated threats and not in the interests of stability in Europe.
