Russian military to hold first ever military drills with Pak

Moscow: In a sign of improving ties between the two erstwhile adversaries, Russia's military has said it will hold its first ever defence exercises with Pakistan later this year.

Russian ground forces will hold seven international drills in 2016, including the first ever military exercises with Pakistan, Army Commander-in-Chief Oleg Salyukov said.

"As part of interaction with our foreign colleagues in 2016, we have scheduled seven joint exercises with the involvement of the relevant units of foreign states. The Army will hold the Russian-Vietnamese exercise and the first ever Russian-Pakistani special drills in mountainous terrain," Salyukov said, TASS news agency reported today.

Also, joint anti-terror command and staff exercises of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization will be held, he said.

"Peace Mission - 2016, the joint drills of peacekeeping forces of the Collective Security Treaty Organization codenamed Indestructible Brotherhood, the Frontier-2016 joint command and staff drills, the Indra-2016 Russian-Indian exercises and the Selenga-2016 Russian-Mongolian drills will be held," the commander said.

Russia had lifted its embargo on arms exports to Pakistan in 2014 and also signed a bilateral defence agreement to strengthen military-to-military relations between the two Cold War-era foes.

In 2015, the two countries signed a landmark deal for the sale of four Mi-35 attack helicopters to Pakistan.