Druzhba military exercise between Russia and Pakistan was started in 2016.

• “Druzba” is Russian word, which means “friendship”.
• This will be the third joint military drill between both countries under the bilateral training cooperation agreement.
• The relation between Russia and Pakistan has become strong in the past few years and has moved apart from their past bitter Cold War hostilities.

One of the main reasons for this is tough attitude of US with Pakistan, which has led Pakistan to lean towards Russia and China. Pakistan is also keen to strengthen defense relations with Russia. Russia also started selling weapons to Pakistan. It has sold four Mi-35M fighters and cargo helicopters to Pakistan.