17.11.2017.
Vučić: We Will Jealously Preserve our Military Neutrality
Today, President of the Republic of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić attended the VIP day at the joint exercise “Winter 2017” which was held in the sports air field Lisičji jarak.
On that occasion, President Vučić stressed that he was satisfied with that day’s exercise, which had been extremely complex and complicated but in which Serbian and American soldiers together demonstrated how it was possible to successfully achieve good results even in complex weather conditions.
- I am proud of Serbian soldiers who have proved that they can jump with parachutes T-11 and from the plane “Hercules” C-130. We do not possess parachutes with the so called domes; we jump with the wing type parachutes where the landing speed is much greater – President of the Republic said adding that our men, nevertheless, demonstrated excellent preparedness.
He pointed out that he was grateful to the American partners for having quickly responded to his request from August, demonstrating that we could organise one such activity in very short time.
As President Vučić said, the importance of that day’s exercise was twofold. On one hand it is important because of the joint training and joint experiences, and joint learning, and on the other because of the creation of partnership, cooperation and friendship “which is something that in the past we could not always take pride in” assessing that the both goals had been fully achieved.
- I believe that such kind of partnership and cooperation will be enhanced in the future, whereat Serbia will, and it goes without saying, always jealously preserve its military neutrality – the President of the Republic said thanking all the soldiers who had participated in the exercise “Winter 2017”.
Thanking President Vučić for the initiative to organise this exercise, the US Ambassador in Serbia Kyle Scott underlined that such exercises were important for the interoperability of both armed forces, pointing out that they contributed to building new relations, and prepared them for joint challenges in the future. He stressed that the US soldiers had shared their impressions with him about the capabilities of Serbian paratroopers, adding that he was satisfied because the exercise of Serbian and American paratroopers was successfully carried out.
After a brief flight from Batajnica air field to Lisičji Jarak, at 11 o’clock, 120 paratroopers jumped from two US planes C-130 “Hercules” from the altitude of 300 metres conducting the assault using US parachutes MC-6 with partially controlled dome and parachute T-11.
According to a participant of the exercise, Captain Bojan Kovačević from the Army Special Brigade, despite slightly stronger wind, the jump was successfully executed. He stressed that the conditions were somewhat more favourable than in the previous days, assessing that the new parachute was not too big a challenge for Serbian paratroopers, since the majority of our participants of the exercise had many jumps behind them.
- It is easier with our parachute. Here we have a dome intended for assaults conducted by infantry units and the dome cannot be controlled, while all the parachutes in use in our armed forces are controllable - Captain Kovačević said explaining that it enabled a paratrooper to choose where he would land. He underscored that the five day cooperation with the US colleagues was exceptionally correct with a highly professional relation of the members of the both armed forces.
The VIP day was also attended by Minister of Defence Aleksandar Vulin, Chief of General Staff of the Serbian Armed Forces General Ljubiša Diković, Special Brigade Commander General Zoran Veličković as well as foreign defence attachés accredited to Serbia.
Today’s jump by 120 Serbian and US paratroopers at the air field Lisičju jarak was the conclusion of the five day exercise “Winter 2017”. In previous days, members of the 63rd Parachuting Battalion, Counter-terrorist Battalion and 72nd Reconnaissance Assault Battalion of the Army Special Brigade of the Republic of Serbia together with their US colleagues from the 173rd Airborne Brigade of the US European Command deployed in Ramstein and Vicenza, carried out ground preparations and two joint jumps.
