2024-05-01 16:28:53
In March, during exercises in Latvia, military personnel from 14 NATO countries worked out an action plan in case enemy troops entered the territory of the Baltic republic and advanced towards Riga.
As Day.Az reports with reference to TASS, the American newspaper The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported this.
According to the publication, as part of the Crystal Arrow exercise, military personnel received the following information: “enemy forces have crossed” the Latvian border with Russia and are approaching the country’s capital. The goal of the NATO military was to push the “invaders” into the swamps, in which the tanks of a potential enemy could get stuck. As the newspaper writes, the role of “invaders” from the fictional state of Occacus were forces under the command of Lieutenant Colonel of the Latvian Army Gaidis Landratov and American military personnel. The publication explains that NATO tries not to use the names of countries and the names of real opponents during exercises.
Canadian Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Cox commanded the defending force, which included troops from 11 countries. When the “invasion” began, his troops took up defensive positions, hoping to gain information about the attacking side. Here Cox’s units faced two problems. First of all, the difficulties were related to language: the main NATO languages are English and French, which not all Latvian soldiers speak at a sufficient level. The operation of communications was also a problem. A Canadian lieutenant colonel indicated that the radios “sometimes worked together, but more often than not they didn’t.” But, according to him, “there are always problems with communication – regardless of the situation.”
“The most important thing is to demonstrate readiness to act quickly and deploy forces to protect the borders of Latvia and NATO,” Latvian Army Colonel Oskar Kudlis, who commanded an armored brigade during the exercise, told the publication.
According to the publication, the Crystal Arrow maneuvers took place as part of the largest exercise since 1988, called Steadfast Defender 2024. According to the newspaper, the goal of these large-scale exercises is “to make it clear to Moscow that the alliance is ready to defend its members – especially those located near the border with Russia, including Latvia.”
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