MOSCOW – The incident took place during the Center-2019 military exercises,which involved over 128,000 troops, more than 20,000 pieces of militaryequipment and about 600 aircraft from members of the Shanghai CooperationOrganisation security alliance.
Two BMD infantry fighting vehicles were destroyed during a paradrop over amilitary range in Russia’s Orenburg region, the Russian defence ministry’spress service has confirmed.
The incident, which saw the pair of vehicles smash into the ground afterbeing deployed from an Il-76 transport system, was said to have taken placeon September 20, with video footage showing the vehicles falling, andphotos from on the ground afterwards showing both pieces of armour totallydestroyed.[image: Loading video]
According to the defence ministry, the vehicles were unсrewed, thankfully,and no injuries were reported.
The Russian military said the cause of the parachute failure was beingdetermined. However, days earlier, a respected Russian military blogreportedlinkthatthe Center-2019 drills would see the first-ever use of a new platformlessparachute system for the BMD-4M, a class of amphibious IFVs.
The defence ministry did not specify the type of parachute used in thefailed paradrop, although the vehicles affected looked like BMD-2s, aseparate class of airborne IFVs.
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The Center-2019 exercises ran between September 16 and September 21, witheight training ranges across Russia and ranges at several other countriesinvolved. In addition to Russia, the drills involved troops from otherShanghai Cooperation Organisation members, including China, Kazakhstan,Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan.
Some 130,000 troops, thousands of vehicles and hundreds of aircraft wereinvolved in the drills, with the exercises training for efforts to combatregional terrorism and ensuring military security in Central Asia.
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