At a summit Thursday (24/3), the leaders of NATO countries agreed to strengthen troops on the eastern side of the alliance, with the deployment of four new battle groups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.
"I hope that leaders will agree to strengthen NATO's posture in all domains, with major improvements in the Eastern part of the alliance on land, in the air and at sea," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said ahead of a summit in Brussels on Russia's invasion of Ukraine. as quoted by Reuters.
He said, with the new battle groups and existing forces in the Baltic states and Poland, NATO would have eight multinational groups along the eastern flank of the defense alliance.
According to Stoltenberg, the Ukraine crisis has shown that NATO must reorganize its deterrence and defense posture in the long term.
Currently, NATO is holding military exercises involving 30,000 personnel from 27 countries, including 3,000 US marines, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The scenario for a NATO military exercise taking place in the Arctic region is similar to previous exercises: Norway is attacked by a fictional nation.
But this year, the biennial exercise, Cold Response, adds significance to the 3,000 US Marines who took part in it because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Corporal Sean Galigan, a 21-year-old US Marine who focuses on refueling planes during drills, said the Russian invasion was on his mind.
However, the military drills had been planned by NATO months before Russia started building troops near the Ukrainian border.
"It was always something that could happen, but now that we are here, if something happens, we will be ready to fight," Galigan told Reuters.
While there is no sign of Russia taking military action in Norway, the invasion of Ukraine has increased unease in the region.
"It felt a little more real," a US Marine C-130 pilot told Reuters as he flew from Bardufoss near Evenes in Norway.
During the exercise, U.S. Marines made an amphibious landing in Norway and there was a seizure of the country's airspace.
Also, a painstaking effort to look into the logistics of bringing troops to Norway and resupplying them.
The drills, which ran through the first week of April, were controlled at a mock operations center in Boda, with ranks of US Marines working on computers to track enemies.
The command center also tracked the movements of Marine personnel as they headed for the Norwegian coast and F-18 fighter jets provided air cover to troops further north.
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