The Hellenic National Defence General Staff announces that the three-day visit of the Chief of the Armed Forces and First Deputy Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation, General Yury Baluevskiy, was concluded on 27 March 2006. He was officially invited by the Chief/HNDGS, Admiral Panagiotis Chinofotis ΗΝ.
During their discussions, they exchanged views on the enhancement of the existing bilateral cooperation and also the cooperation in the framework of the NATO-Russia Council. In this context, it was decided that bilateral military cooperation should be focused on co-training in Peace Keeping – Peace Support Operations, on the exchange of military intelligence mostly referring to asymmetric threats, on flight safety, military medicine, Special Forces co-training, conduct of common naval exercises and on other issues of military interest.
Additionally, it was decided that a Common High Level Steering Committee should be established, with the aim to observe and coordinate the activities of the bilateral military cooperation and also to determine new co- operational fields of common benefit.
General Yury Baluevskiy had a courtesy call with the Minister of National Defence, Evangelos-Vasileios I. Meimarakis, during which they exchanged views on a wide spectrum of issues.
Mr Andrey Vdovin, the Ambassador of the Russian Federation in Greece, participated in the above discussions.
It is the first time that a Chief of the Russian Federation Armed Forces has visited our country.
LTC Gerasimos Kalpogiannakis
HNDGS Spokesman