On February 10 through 13 soldiers from 9 NATO member states were in attendance at the Main Planning Conference of international Exercise Saber Strike 2015 at the Adolfas Ramanauskas Warfare Training Centre in Nemenčinė. The exercise organised by the US Army in Europe (USAREUR) will take place in June concurrently in the Baltic States and Poland and will involve Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, Danish, Finnish, American, German, French, Portuguese and Polish military personnel.
"For us, this exercise will be a challenge that also offers a great opportunity to enhance military cooperation in both formats, Baltic and multilateral. The event will help us improve interoperability in combined NATO units, coordination of actions and readiness to carry out defensive and offensive operations," Officer Scheduling the Exercise in Lithuania Major General Almantas Leika said.
The main highlights of the part of the exercise in Lithuania will be command post exercise of the Danish Division on a tactical computer simulation system in Nemenčinė and tactical field exercise of four battalion-sized tactical groups at the Pabradės and Gaižiūnų Training Areas of the Lithuanian Armed Forces.
Lithuania will be represented at Saber Strike 2015 by the Lithuanian Grand Duke Algirdas and the Lithuanian Grand Duke Kęstutis Battalions of the Mechanised Infantry Brigade Iron Wolf and the Lithuanian Grand Duke Butigeidis Dragoon Battalion, military personnel of the Duke Vaidotas Mechanised Infantry, the Grand Duchess Birutė Uhlan, Juozas Vitkus Engineer Battalions, and territorial units of the National Defence Volunteer Force. Over ten Lithuanian officers will also take part in the exercise in headquarters of different levels.
The part of the exercise held in Latvia will also certify the trilateral Baltic Battalion BALTBAT where Lithuania is represented by a company from King Mindaugas Hussar Battalion for standby for the NATO Response Force (NRF) in 2016.
Saber Strike is an annual international exercise organised by the U.S. Army in Europe in the Baltic States. The fifth iteration of the exercise this year will also be held in the territory of Poland.
Every year Saber Strike encompasses a larger number of participating NATO allies. In 2014 the exercise involved nearly 5 thousand soldiers from 10 NATO member states and partner nations - Denmark, Estonia, U.S.A., UK, Canada, Latvia, Poland, Lithuania, Norway and Finland. Several hundred of them where training in Estonia, approximately 2 thousand - in Latvia, and roughly 2.6 thousand - in Lithuania.
Photo credit: Ieva Budzeikaitė
