Watch Russian armored vehicles parachute from an altitude of nearly 2,000m

More than 200 armored vehicles and 2,500 soldiers took part in the joint exercise between the Transport Air Force and the Airborne Forces. The highlight of the exercise was the airdrop of a new APC with its crew, RT news agency reported.

"The exercise went well. The servicemen are ready to carry out combat missions. Dropping an armored vehicle with a crew from the air is a historic event," Lieutenant General Vladimir Benediktov of the Russian Transport Aviation told RT.

No other military in the world has succeeded in implementing this risky technology. They only drop soldiers and machines separately, RT said.

Dropping vehicles with crews on board at the same time allows them to be ready for combat within minutes of landing. The person who conceived and implemented this special technology was the legendary commander of the Russian Airborne Forces, General Vasiliy Margelov.

The BTR-MDM armored personnel carriers entered service with the Russian army in 2015, but they had never been dropped from above with a crew on board until this latest exercise.

Both the vehicle and crew parachuted safely from a height of more than 1,800 meters. The new machine weighs nearly 14 tons and contains 2 crew members and 13 paratroopers. The previous version of the BTR-MDM, the BTR-D, weighed only 8 tons.

In addition to the new APCs, Russian paratroopers have for the first time used two different types of parachutes while jumping from a single aircraft - the Arbalet-3 parachute and the new Tandem Military parachute system.