Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future - Strategic ...

ing tasks with small subunits. We have to understand
how our troops must act, and most important what
armaments they will need. 60
According to Minister of Defense Dmitri Serdyukov,
Vostok-2010 was designed particularly to test the
deployment of forces and the operational command
and control of the new brigade-based force structure.
Vostok-2010 did not pit two opposing armies in linear
combat. Instead, it involved isolated combat and
noncombat episodes testing various forces. Fighter
aviation conducted long-range deployments from European
Russia to the Far East, employing in-air refueling
from tanker aircraft. Air defense forces launched
surface to air (SAM) missile strikes against “enemy
bombers seeking to attack Khabarovsk.” Special forces
cooperated with the camp guards to prevent the
release of a special prisoner from a labor camp near
Chita. Combined naval forces, including ships from
the Pacific, Northern, and Black Sea Fleets, engaged
enemy surface and subsurface forces at sea and conducted
air assault and amphibious landings. Other
troops beat back an enemy landing on one of the Kuril
Islands. Motorized rifle and tank brigades in the Siberian
Military District engaged separatists seeking to
cut off the Russian Far East and they defeated the enemy
by combined arms maneuver through the depths
of the enemy, culminating in forcing the Onon River
and imposing upon the enemy retreat and the assumption
of a tactical defense. In Primorye (the Maritime
Province), Russian forces simulated the flight of refugees
from North Korea. At the same time, President
Medvedev used his visit to the Far East in conjunction
with the exercise to praise the evident progress made
in the “new look” and to underscore the government’s
486