On June 17 the part of the international Exercise Saber Strike 15 in Lithuania which took place at the Pabradės Training Area concluded.
Having been engaged in training till noon, exercise participants fell into the formation for the closing ceremony coming straight out of the battlefield.
Chief of Staff of the Lithuanian Land Force Colonel Dalius Polekauskas underscored at the closing ceremony that such exercises fostered common values and relations among allied forces.
The Field Training Exercise (FTX) which was running at the Pabradės Training Area from June 8 involved roughly 1.5 thousand of military personnel from Germany, Lithuania, Portugal, Slovenia and the United States. A similar number of soldiers are still training at the Gaižiūnų Training Area, while tomorrow, June 18, Exercise Saber Strike in Lithuania will be officially closed in Rukla after Distinguished Visitors and Media Day.
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Saber Strike is an annual exercise held by the U.S. Army Europe in the Baltic States. Saber Strike 15 is the fifth iteration of the series held in Lithuania.
The part of the exercise in Lithuania involved roughly 1.6 thousand Lithuanian military and 1.5 thousand troops from 9 NATO countries - Canada, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Latvia, Portugal, Slovenia, and the USA.
The Field Training Exercise of Saber Strike 15 held in the Adazi Training Area in Latvia will also certify at national level the Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian Baltic Battalion (BALTBAT) which is preparing for standby for the NATO Response Force (NRF) in 2016. Lithuania's input into BALTBAT is a company and a headquarters element of King Mindaugas Hussar Battalion.
The portions of Saber Strike running in Estonia and Poland feature air capability training and live fire exercise respectively.
Photo credits: 1st Lt Andrius Dilda
