22.04.2023.

Demonstration of Capabilities of Serbian Armed Forces “Granite 2023”

Today, at the military airfield “Colonel-Pilot Milenko Pavlović” in Batajnica, a demonstration of capabilities of Serbian Armed Forces “Granite 2023” in the presence of President of the Republic and Supreme Commander of the Serbian Armed Forces Aleksandar Vučić, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Miloš Vučević and Chief of General Staff of the Serbian Armed Forces General Milan Mojsilović.

The demonstration to mark Serbian Armed Forces Day was attended by Prime Minister of Hungarian Government Viktor Orban, Serbian Member and Chairwoman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Željka Cvijanović, President of the Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik, Minister of Defence of Hungary Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky, President of the National Assembly of Serbia Vladimir Orlić and Prime Minister of the Government of the Republic of Serbia Ana Brnabić.

The president of the Republic of Serbia evaluated the demonstration of capabilities as “very good” and congratulated the Serbian Armed Forces Day to all their members. On that occasion, President Vučić expressed his gratitude to representatives of the Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Hungary who viewed the demonstration.

- This morning, we had excellent talks with Prime Minister Orban and his team on joint fight against terrorism. We cannot name it otherwise, since they are a NATO country, and we are not and we do not wish to be. We wish to maintain our military neutrality, but we will cooperate in every way in many areas relating to the fight against terrorism and use of military-police modern assets - President Vučić stated.

President Vučić congratulated Serbian Armed Forces Day and reminded that the date was marked in memory of the start of the Second Serbian Uprising, which had laid foundation for the modern Serbian statehood in true sense of that word.

- Today, we have presented a part of our weapons, arms, and state-of-the-art assets. You had the opportunity to observe numerous changes, and see for the first time the “CH-95”, “CH-92” for the second time, and just the other day our “Sparrows” conducted rather successful in firing. We are developing our drones, and we have commissioned our “Kamikaze” drones that we have already bought and reserved and you will be able to see them by the end of the year. We are carefully following the events in Ukraine, and our Military Intelligence Agency and the General Staff give me daily reports on new developments and on the ways and assets used to wage that war - said President Vučić.

Addressing the present, the president particularly singled out “Pantsir”, “FK-3”, missile artillery, and unmanned aerial systems that are of key importance. He stressed the significance of strengthening the force with modernised fighting infantry vehicles and modernised tanks.

President Vučić stated that he is extremely proud of the members of special units.

- You have seen how well equipped they are, their uniforms, everything is differnet when compared to some other times. I am particularly proud of the fact that some 1,700 people applied for 530 positions that we opened. Among the applicants, 4.43 per cent are women, and 95.57 are men. Some would say that the number of applicants from the territory of Belgrade is surprisingly high, bur proportionally by the number of inhabitants, the greatest number by far applied from Jablanica region. I congratulate the people from Jablanica and I would like to thank them that together with Toplica and Pčinja they are the ones who defend Serbia the most. To conclude, three times more people have applied. We believe that after a strict process of selection, we will have more than requested number of soldiers, and then we plan the first summon when they will receive their first salaries amounting to 2,000 Euro or higher. Then, all others will see that we are telling truth and that there is no fraud - said president of Serbia adding that the visitors of the demonstration had an opportunity to see the flight of 10 MiG-29 and 10 Orao aeroplanes, and numerous helicopters, and he took the opportunity to announce the arrival of new helicopters.

- Our armed forces are becoming ever stronger, and we will have to continue the manning, to reach better quality and invest a lot. I am never fully satisfied, but I can express my gratitude for the effort, for always being there to protect and defend Serbia. It is our duty to maintain and protect peace, but you can maintain and protect peace and people only if you have strong armed forces. We will continue developing our armed forces, and I evaluate today’s exercise as “very good” with all my gratitude and congratulations to the members of the Serbian Armed Forces.

President of the Republika Srpska Dodik, congratulated everyone on the successful demonstration, which, according to him, showed progress.

- Every time we come here, we see great change - it is a change towards better competence, equipment, training, and everything that matters in order for Serbia, its territory, our people wherever they are to defend successfully and deter anyone who would potentially wish to launch any kind of assault. Today, Serbia is modernised in this respect as well, and its armed forces are strong - stressed the president of the Republika Srpska.

He pointed out that when we looked back, we should be proud of everything done and everything planned to be done.

- It is all the result of efforts, planning, thought out actions to modernise and strengthen primarily the will to fight and defend Serbia, and that cannot be done without equipping - the president of the Republika Srpska underlined, adding that he was proud of attending the demonstration and of making sure of the progress of Serbia.

The demonstration included the capabilities of a part of the Air Force and Air Defence, special forces, march-past of special units, flyby of air echelon, the state-of-the-art arms and military equipment of the Serbian Armed Forces, and assets being developed by national defence industry.

Today’s demonstration started with a parachute demo jump performed by members of 63rd Parachute Brigade with flags of the Republic of Serbia and Serbian Armed Forces from helicopters H-145M from the altitude of 1,500 metres.

The flying programme ensued, which started with the flypast of combat helicopters Mi-35. They engaged enemy targets to provide air support to the forces in operation and to create favourable conditions for the execution of landing from a helicopter and antiterrorist operation.

Following the air support conditions were created for the landing from the helicopter. Teams of 72nd Special Operations Brigade landed using fast rope technique from helicopters Mi-8 and rappelling technique with alpine ropes from helicopter Mi-17.

With the engagement of fighter aeroplanes MiG-29, air supremacy was achieved thus providing protection of assault aviation groups.

Concurrently, at the apron of Batajnica airfield, ensued solving a hostage crisis, which demonstrated the work of antiterrorist teams of Military Police Special Purpose Detachment “Kobre” who blocked a motor vehicle and applying special action tactics carried out an assault and neutralised the terrorists.

After the conditions have been created, and assault group of Orao aeroplanes took off from the runway. Modernised aeroplane Orao armed with guided air to surface missile ВРВЗ-200 and equipped with modern equipment led the assault group. Following the assault aircraft group, Supergaleb and G-4 aeroplanes took off with the view of executing their assigned tasks.

What ensued was the extraction of special forces by helicopters. Owing to the quantity and diversity of ordnance, combat helicopters Mi-35 provided efficient immediate air support and created favourable conditions for the extraction of special teams.

In the sky above Batajnica airfield there were helicopters Mi-17 with immediate protection of combat helicopters H-145, armed with seven-barrel launcher for 80mm rocket projectiles and a gondola with nationally produced 12.7mm machine gun. This was followed by the demonstration of extraction of special forces teams using the technique “Cluster” and using the platform for air evacuation “Air TEP”.

Then, aeroplanes Orao and Supergaleb G-4 provided air support to land forces by engaging important targets and enemy forces in tactical and operation depth.

After receiving information about the violation of air space, a reaction followed of on-duty pair of fighter aeroplane MiG-29. The data obtained from radar surveillance after being gathered and processed in centres for air surveillance, warning and guidance, are distributed to the forces in the system of air space control and protection. Apart from the fighter aviation, the AD system also engages missile units for anti-aircraft action. Reaction of missile system Kub was presented, which owing to the modernisation enables quick target detection and tracking. The ensued the tracking of assigned target by means of modern anti-aircraft missile systems FK-3 and artillery-missile system “Pantsir”.

Air defence action against the targets at small altitudes and distances were executed from surface-to-air mobile missiles system with infrared guidance “Igla” equipped with target display system.

After having achieved air supremacy, fighter aeroplanes MiG-29 executed the tasks in the patrolling area.

The next part of the demonstration of capabilities of the Serbian Armed Forces “Granite 2023” included the parade of special units of the Serbian Armed Forces. The parade involved the sub-echelons of 63rd Parachute Brigade and sub-echelons of special operations battalion “Grifoni” and “Sokolovi” from 72nd Special Operations Brigade. They were followed by sub-echelons of Military Police Special Purpose Detachment “Kobre”, and of the Army Military Police, as sub-echelons of Army reconnaissance units and units of the Training Command.

The continuation of today’s demonstration brought the flypast of air echelon - aeroplanes MiG-29, Orao, Supergaleb G-4, then training aeroplanes Last and Utva 75, combat helicopters Mi-35, helicopters Mi-8, Gamma, H-145 and Gazelle and multipurpose helicopter Mi-17. The flypast of the air echelon ended with attractive hedgehopping flight of two MiG-29 aeroplanes.

The public was able to see for the first time an unmanned aerial vehicle “CH-95”. Today’s demonstration featured more than 5,000 members of the Ministry of Defence and the Serbian Armed Forces, about 2,300 pieces of arms and military equipment and over 60 aircraft.

The visitors had the opportunity of seeing the state-of-the-art arms and military equipment by which the Serbian Armed Forces are equipped, as well as assets developed by Serbian Defence Industry companies.

At Batajnica airfield, the citizens had the chance to see anti-aircraft missile systmes FK-3 and Pantsir, PASARS, Mistral, and then modernised missile systems Kub and Neva, modernised self-propelled launching weapon Strela-10, modernised Igla, mobile centre for air surveillance and warning, and modernised radars P-12 and Giraffe.

Also presented to the visitors were tanks М-84АS1/2, М-84АB1, fighting infantry vehicles BVP MМ-80АB1, then combat armoured vehicles Lazar-3, Miloš, Lazanski, BOV and MRAP 6x6 produced by national defence industry, as well as Humvees, BRDM-2MS and Berket vehicles.

Artillery weapons were among presented equipment as well including 155mm self-propelled howitzer gun NORA B-52, 122mm modernised howitzer Gvozdika, modernised armoured transporter KOT, modular Oganj, universal mobile artillery computing station UPARS, Tamnava, Šumadija, ALAS, 122mm self-propelled howitzers Sora and Soko.

Visitors had the opportunity to see all modern nationally produced and imported unmanned aerial vehicles, and unmanned helicopters and reconnaissance and fighting drones such as CH-92A, PEGASUS, Vrabac, IKA-20, IKA-50, GAVRAN and Stršljen.

On the apron of Batajnica airfield, there was a display of light weapons, opto-electronic devices, modern protective, ballistic and camouflage equipment, and equipment intended for specific tasks.