A dozen of NATO member countries began on Thursday the largest multinational airborne drill in Europe since the Second World War, Bulgarian Ministry of Defense said in a press release.
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In announcing the games August 18, the U.S. Army said they were aimed at demonstrating “high-readiness” and the capacity to maintain “a strong and secure Europe”.
Participating in the exercises until 13 September are more than 4,800 soldiers from Bulgaria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Britain and the United States.
The culmination of Swift Response is expected to be on August 26, when simultaneous airborne joint forced entries into Bulgaria’s Novo Selo Training Area and Germany’s Hohenfels Training Area are scheduled to take place.
While the Army’s statement made no direct mention of it, this sharp uptick in allied cooperation coincides with the crisis in Ukraine, wherein 7,000 have already lost their lives in bloody clashes between Ukraine’s national forces and Russian-backed separatists in the east.
Russian lawmakers are calling the largest allied airborne drills in Europe since the Cold War a threat and provocation rather than a defensive exercise.
Though a ceasefire was signed in Minsk in February, fighting has escalated around the Ukrainian town of Mariupol.
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It said the exercise marks the first time the US 82nd Airborne Division has operated in Europe since supporting NATO operations in Kosovo in 1999.
