WORLD
NATO Occupies European Skies With Biggest Drills Since Cold War
Baku, August 19, AZERTAC
The US Army in Germany said the drills, in which nearly 5,000 soldiers will take part over four weeks, are the biggest held in Europe since the end of the Cold War, according to the portal Salzburg24.
NATO has launched the largest airborne drills since the end of the Cold War, the US Army announced on Tuesday, with more than 4,800 troops from 11 NATO member states set to take part in four weeks of exercises across Germany, Italy, Bulgaria and Romania.
Soldiers from Bulgaria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, the UK and the United States are taking part in the exercise, which marks the return to Europe of the US Army`s 82nd Airborne Division for the first time since it was sent to carry out operations in Kosovo in 1999.
The US Army stated that the high point of the drills, which will continue until September 13, will be maneuvers on August 26 held at the Novo Selo military base in Bulgaria, and at the Hohenfels training area in Germany, where more than 1,000 paratroopers and equipment will be dropped by NATO warplanes.
"NATO is not only unprepared to recognize the fallacy and possible explosive consequences of these drills, but has also boosted their scale and the strength of forces involved in comparison with last year's exercises," said the Russian Foreign Ministry in a statement in July on the launch of US-led NATO military exercises for the Ukrainian army in Lvov.