News Agencies – One of the largest U.S.-Army led military exercises in decades will run until June, with 28,000 total troops from 27 nations taking part. Defender Europe 2021 will include “nearly simultaneous operations across more than 30 training areas” in a dozen countries, Army Times reports.
This year’s wider-ranging exercise will include COVID restrictions and monitoring but will span the Balkans and the Black Sea region and use key ground and maritime routes that bridge Europe, Asia and Africa, according to a U.S. Army Europe and Africa statement.
Speaking at an online forum of the Association of the United States Army, Gen. Christopher Cavoli, commanding general of U.S. Army Europe and Africa Command, said final planning is underway. The exercise also reflects the changes in his command, bringing Army troops in Africa under his control. He said the structural change allows him “to think hemispherically” about security, USNI News writes.
As Pressenza reports, Defender Europe is conceived as a series of annual exercises to maintain and expand Europe’s new level of militarization. Defender Europe 21 – also targeting Russia – is planned on a comparable scale as last year’s exercise, however, with a different regional focus – the Black Sea rather than the Baltic region. In addition to the Defender Europe exercises against Russia, the United States is planning a series of Defender Pacific exercises targeting China.
Regnum reports that the representative of Ukraine in the trilateral contact group on Donbass, Oleksiy Arestovich, said that his country, together with the NATO military bloc, within the framework of the Defender Europe 2021 exercise, will work out a “war with Russia.”
