Rus­sia is hold­ing a mas­sive mil­i­tary exer­cise in Kalin­ingrad, a sen­si­tive exclave of Russ­ian ter­ri­to­ry sand­wiched between Poland and the Baltics.

Kalin­ingrad is a tiny Russ­ian enclave sit­ting between Poland and Lithua­nia, a Russia’s strate­gic out­post on NATO’s doorstep.

Mis­sile for­ma­tions of Russia’s Baltic Fleet have held drills in the Kalin­ingrad Region for elim­i­nat­ing a notion­al enemy’s sub­ver­sive groups and stealth­ily deploy­ing Iskan­der tac­ti­cal mis­sile sys­tems, the Fleet’s press office report­ed on Monday.

The exer­cise on destruc­tion of the com­mand posts and oth­er objects of the mock ene­my start­ed with the crews of mobile-tac­ti­cal mis­sile com­plex­es “Iskan­der” of the Baltic Fleet army corp at the ground in the Kalin­ingrad region.

Cur­rent­ly, the units of the mis­sile for­ma­tion have already marched to the des­ig­nat­ed area to per­form a com­bat train­ing task, dur­ing which they repelled attacks by mock sab­o­tage and recon­nais­sance groups and over­came the con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed area.

In addi­tion, over 20 crews of air­craft and heli­copters of the Baltic Fleet’s naval avi­a­tion are involved in tac­ti­cal flight drills in the Kalin­ingrad Region.

“Dur­ing sched­uled drills, over 20 crews of Su-27, Su-24 and Su-30SM air­craft, Mi-24 and Mi‑8 attack and mil­i­tary-trans­port heli­copters and also of ship­borne Ka-27 gun­ships and An-26 mil­i­tary-trans­port planes of the Baltic Fleet’s naval avi­a­tion are accom­plish­ing a set of var­i­ous assign­ments,” the press office said in a statement.

Dur­ing the drills, the crews are launch­ing air­borne mis­siles and rock­ets of var­i­ous class­es, fir­ing air­craft guns, drop­ping bombs weigh­ing from 100 kg to 500 kg and prac­tic­ing maneu­ver­ing ele­ments in an aer­i­al bat­tle and tar­get runs under a notion­al enemy’s jam­ming, the state­ment says.

The crews of Su-24 front­line bombers and Su-30SM mul­ti­role fight­ers will drop bombs on a tar­get field and fire rock­ets against coastal tar­gets. Su-27 fight­ers will accom­plish the assign­ments of inter­cept­ing notion­al intrud­ers of the air­space over the Kalin­ingrad Region and con­duct elec­tron­ic launch­es against the enemy’s cruise mis­siles and strate­gic bombers, the press office specified.

Along with the attack and fight­er air­craft, the crews of heli­copters will prac­tice mis­sions at com­bat train­ing ranges to search for and track sub­marines, pro­vide air sup­port for coastal defense troops, air­lift and land a tac­ti­cal air­borne assault force, the state­ment says.

“The naval avi­a­tion pilots are accom­plish­ing com­bat train­ing tasks both in the day­time and at night. Around 50 com­bat train­ing sor­ties have been per­formed. Over­all, the exer­cise involves about 20 air­craft and also over 400 per­son­nel of an air for­ma­tion of the Baltic Fleet’s naval avi­a­tion,” the press office said.

The tac­ti­cal flight exer­cise is aimed at improv­ing the pilots’ fly­ing, com­bat employ­ment and pro­fes­sion­al skills, it stressed.