“It is for the first time that all air defense units from the district, including coastal defenses of the Northern Fleet, have gathered in one place,” said the district’s spokesman, Col. Oleg Kochetkov.

He added that combat crews of air defense systems S-300, Buk-M1, Osa (SA-8 Gecko), Strela-10 (SA-13 Gopher), air defense gun systems Tunguska, mobile air defense systems Igla would participate in the military exercises.

“It is the largest-ever exercise held by air defense units of the Western Military District,” Kochetkov said, adding that the drills were part of a regular combat training cycle.

Around 3,500 specialists of the district’s army air defense systems and more than 1,000 pieces of military and special hardware were participating in the drills, Kochetkov said. Around 30 military trains were used to transfer military hardware from different Russian regions.

The exercise, however, coincides with further escalation of a political crisis in Ukraine that has led to the current standoff between Russia and the West over the fate of Crimea, an autonomous Ukrainian region with a majority ethnic Russian population.