Nato, the maxi-exercise begins: “The biggest in recent decades”

NATO has kicked off Steadfast Defender 24, the largest military exercise since the Cold War, with a US warship sailing toward the shores of Europe. Around 90,000 troops will take part in maneuvers designed to test the Atlantic Alliance’s defenses in light of Russia’s war against Ukraine. “The alliance will demonstrate its ability to strengthen the Euro-Atlantic area through the transatlantic movement of forces from North America,” said General Christopher Cavoli, NATO’s supreme commander in Europe. “Steadfast Defender 2024 will be a clear demonstration of our unity, strength and determination to protect each other, our values ​​and the rules-based international order.” The exercise will simulate the response of 31 nations to an attack from an enemy like Moscow and will see a series of smaller individual exercises covering a theater that reaches as far as NATO’s eastern flank, near the Russian border. Approximately 50 warships, 80 aircraft and more than 1,100 combat vehicles will participate.

There is currently no imminent threat of an attack against a NATO ally. The statement was made by the secretary general of the Atlantic Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, in a press release at the end of the signing ceremony for the new investment in artillery ammunition that took place in Brussels. “Of course, we closely monitor what Russia does. We have increased our surveillance, our presence in the eastern part of the allied lines, but with the idea of ​​preventing any attack on a NATO ally,” he said. “When the invasion of Ukraine took place in February 2022, almost two years ago, it became clear to NATO that we had two tasks. One was to support Ukraine, and NATO allies are providing unprecedented support to Ukraine and I am sure they will continue to do so. The other was to prevent this war from degenerating into a full-scale war between Russia and NATO,” he added.