Russia’s servicemen will join efforts with their U.S. and Canadian fellows during the Vigilant Eagle 2012 drills to repel a hypothetical terrorist attack on a passenger airliner, the Russian Eastern Military District’s press service said on Monday, Aug 27.

“The Vigilant Eagle 2012 exercises will be held on August 27-29. They are aimed at practicing interaction between the Russian armed forces and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in case of a terrorist attack on a passenger airliner,” the district’s spokesman Col. Alexander Gordeyev said.

The drills will be held for the third time. They first were held in 2010.

The exercises involve Russian, U.S. and Canadian armed forces units. Exercise headquarters are stationed in Colorado Springs (Colorado) and Anchorage (Alaska), as well as in the cities of Khabarovsk and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in the Russian Far East, RIA Novosti reported.

NORAD is a joint U.S.-Canadian organization providing aerospace warning and defense for the two countries.