Serbian Second Lieutenant the Best Tank Commander at the Tank Biathlon

Saturday, 12.8.2017 | International Co-operation

Second Lieutenant Mladen Ikić from the 26th Tank Battalion of the 2nd Army Brigade was declared the best tank commander in the competition of 57 crews from 19 countries in the “Tank Biathlon”.

Second Lieutenant Mladen Ikić from the 26th Tank Battalion of the Second Army Brigade was declared the best tank commander in the competition of 57 crews from 19 countries who competed in the “Tank Biathlon”. 

Among the awarded, there is also the team leader Lieutenant Colonel Saša Todorov, Master Sergeant Aleksandar Jović from the team that competed in the discipline “Tank Biathlon” and civilian Branimir Perić in the discipline “Field Kichen”.

Minister of Defence Aleksandar Vulin and Army Commander of Serbian Armed Forces Lieutenant General Milosav Simović visited the members of Serbian Armed Forces the participant of the “International Military Games 2017” at Alabino training site not far from Moscow and congratulated them on the high sixth place they had won in the fierce competition, expressing satisfaction with the presented team spirit and dedication during the competition.

-I am proud of the members of Serbian Armed Forces who participated in this year’s “International Military Games”. In numbers we are perhaps not a large military, especially when compared to the countries that participated in this competition, but we have excellently trained and courageous soldiers and they showed it. The sixth place in the tough competition is a success, particularly having in mind that fact that the significant part of our team consists of the members of Serbian Armed Forces who found themselves for the first time on the track of the Alabino training site. I extend special congratulations to the Second Lieutenant Ikić who demonstrated extraordinary skill in commanding a tank, and I wish to the entire team even better position on some of the future competitions – minister of defence said.

This year, at the “Tank Biathlon”, which was the most attractive discipline of the “International Military Games”, 20 tankmen of the Serbian Armed Forces competed with their colleagues from 19 countries divided into 57 crews. Led by Lieutenant Colonel Saša Todorov, achieving notable results in the first stage of the competition, our tankmen qualified for the semi-finals among 12 teams who competed in the so called “relay”, and in the final stage of the competition they won the sixth place behind the teams from Azerbaijan, Belarus, China and Kazakhstan. This year the victory was claimed by the tankmen from the Russian Federation who are the multiple champions of the “Tank Biathlon”.

Serbian tankmen trained and competed in tanks T-72 B3, who were provided to them for this occasion by the Russian hosts, while the teams from China, Belarus and India competed in their own tanks. The trip to the Russian Federation was preceded by two month preparations of our tankmen in Serbia. The best result that the tankmen of the Serbian Armed Forces achieved in this competition was in 2015 when they took up the third position, sharing the winners’ podium with Russia and China.

This year, for the first time, the eight member team of Serbian Armed Forces led by Lieutenant Colonel Miroslav Jovanović has competed in the discipline “Field Kicheon” in the categories of baking products and cooking, with six other competing countries. The bakers of Serbian Armed Forces have won the third place in the category of bread making according to Russian recipe.

Within five stages, apart from the competition in the preparation of culinary specialities of national kitchen and bakery products, the chefs of Serbian Armed Forces had to demonstrate their skills in handling weapons. The fact that speaks in favour of the good impression that our military chefs have created is that, during the competition, they had an opportunity to host on their stand the Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation, Sergey Shoygu, and Ambassador of the Republic of Serbia in Moscow Slavenko Terzić.

The competitions of the International military games started at the training site Alabino, but the competition was concurrently held on 21 training fields in 28 military disciplines in Russia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan and China as well as in the waters of Black, Caspian and Japanese Seas.

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