{"id":148744,"date":"2015-05-04T13:43:02","date_gmt":"2015-05-04T13:43:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?guid=3310402f6c17b7bbb26a86e3aebab7d1"},"modified":"2015-05-04T14:57:25","modified_gmt":"2015-05-04T14:57:25","slug":"nato-allies-stage-thousands-strong-drills-across-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/war-terrorism\/nato-allies-stage-thousands-strong-drills-across-europe\/","title":{"rendered":"NATO & allies stage thousands-strong drills across Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

(RT<\/a>) – Three sets of military exercises kicked off in Europe on Monday, involving thousands of servicemen from a variety of NATO nations and their allies, amid a wave of similar action across the area.<\/p>\n

Estonia is holding its largest-ever military drills. Named\u00a0Siil-2015 (Hedgehog), the maneuvers involve about 13,000\u00a0personnel. The number includes about 7,000 reservists, along with\u00a0members of the volunteer Estonian Defense League.<\/p>\n

Siil-2015, scheduled to last until May 15, also involves forces\u00a0from the US, the UK, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Belgium, Poland
\nand the Netherlands. American troops, who are staying in Estonia\u00a0as part of the massive training operation Atlantic Resolve, will\u00a0bring four Abrams main battle tanks to the exercise. British,\u00a0Belgian and German air defense units, as well as several NATO\u00a0warplanes, will also take part.<\/p>\n

The Lithuanian Army is holding its own maneuvers as part of the\u00a0largest national drills called Zaibo Kirtis (Lightning Strike).\u00a0The training involves over 3,000 troops. It is focused on joint\u00a0action by the army and civilian authorities against so-called\u00a0hybrid threats combining both military and non-military methods\u00a0of fighting, according to Army Commander Major-General Jonas\u00a0Vytautas Zukas.<\/p>\n

In a statement cited by TASS, the major-general said: “The\u00a0exercises will simulate situations when the Interior Ministry\u2019s\u00a0forces and resources are insufficient to neutralize various\u00a0extreme situations unrelated to the direct repulsion of an\u00a0imaginary enemy\u2019s attack and the army should be involved.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Lightning Strike will also be testing the country’s mobilization\u00a0system and cyber security works, according to the Defense
\nMinistry’s press release.<\/p>\n

In Norway, NATO and its allies have gathered for annual\u00a0anti-submarine exercises. About 5,000 servicemen from 10 NATO\u00a0countries and Sweden are taking part. The drills, codenamed\u00a0Dynamic Mongoose, involve simulated sub hunts utilizing surface\u00a0vessels, aircraft and a variety of radar and sonar technologies.\u00a0The US, Germany and Sweden are providing the submarines.<\/p>\n

The two-week exercise follows reports of a suspected foreign\u00a0underwater vessel off the coast of Finland, which prompted the
\nuse of depth charges to scare it off. In autumn last year, a\u00a0similar scare triggered a weeklong search in the sea near\u00a0Stockholm, for what later turned out to be a civilian workboat.\u00a0In the latter case, the finger of blame was unequivocally pointed\u00a0at Russia, amid rising tensions over the Ukrainian conflict.<\/p>\n

When speaking to the media about Dynamic Mongoose, NATO\u00a0commanders avoided sending a message to any country in
\nparticular: \u201cObviously we\u2019re aware of the incidents that have\u00a0happened in some of our partner nations\u2019 waters,\u201d<\/em> NATO Rear\u00a0Admiral Brad Williamson said. \u201cI think what it does is it\u00a0focuses our efforts and our training here.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(RT) – Three sets of military exercises kicked off in Europe on Monday, involving thousands of servicemen from a variety of NATO nations and their allies, amid a wave of similar action across the area. Estonia is holding its largest-ever military drills. Named\u00a0Siil-2015 (Hedgehog), the maneuvers involve about 13,000\u00a0personnel. The number includes about 7,000 reservists, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1213,"featured_media":148769,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,16],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-148744","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-war-terrorism"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}