India, Kazakhstan conduct joint military exercise in Meghalaya

Shillong (Meghalaya) [India], December 26 (ANI): The sixth edition of KazInd 2022, the joint exercise of the Indian Army and Kazakhstan Army was held at Umroi in Meghalaya.

The 14-day-long joint military exercise started on December 15. The joint annual training exercise with the Kazakhstan Army was instituted in 2016 as Exercise Prabal Dostyk, which was later upgraded to a company-level exercise and renamed as Ex Kazind in 2018.

In the sixth edition of KazInd, Kazakhstan Army soldiers, comprising troops from the Regional Command, South and Indian Army soldiers from the 11 Gorkha Rifles, took part.

The aim of the exercise is to build positive military relations, imbibe each other’s best practices and promote the ability to operate together while undertaking counter-terrorist operations in semi-urban/ jungle scenario, under a United Nations peace enforcement mandate, to enable the two armies to train, plan and execute a series of combined tactical drills for neutralising of likely threats that may be encountered in UN peacekeeping operations.

During the exercise, participants engaged in a variety of missions ranging from joint planning, joint tactical drills, basics of special arms skills, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief and raiding a hostile target.

The 14-day-long exercise aims at building trust and understanding of each other in the field of national security.

Senior officials said ‘Exercise KazInd’ will enhance the level of defence cooperation between Indian Army and Kazakhstan Army, which will foster the bilateral relations between the two nations.

The final validation exercise named as Ex Jenis (Ex Victory) displayed the various skills inculcated in patrolling, jungle shooting, reflex shooting, combat tracking, use of Mine Protective Vehicles and the conduct of raid on Monday.

The exercise showed the intra-operationability between both countries according to the UN Mandate.