Seda Sevencan and Selen Temizer
01 February 2022•Update: 01 February 2022
ISTANBUL
NATO said Tuesday it conducted a weeklong exercise in Poland focused on maneuvering in an urban environment.
British soldiers as part of NATO’s enhanced Forward Presence (eFP) Battlegroup conducted training on Russia's Baltic coast, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the border with Kaliningrad, between Poland and Lithuania, according to NATO.
Troops assigned to NATO’s eFP Battlegroups regularly hold training courses to sharpen their skills while learning how to work alongside Allied soldiers, said the statement.
The eFP Battlegroup in Poland is led by the US, it added.
‘What we do on a daily basis is we train together. And like on a particular Monday, we get up, do physical training like every unit. We'll go out to the range, we shoot, we practise, we practise communications. We really practise working together. Because in NATO, it's important that each nation can operate alone,” Battlegroup Poland Commander, Lt. Col. Craig Broyles, said in the statement.
“But we never fight alone. So our biggest focus is really understanding how each other work. I help make sure that we can communicate with each other and that we fight together as a team. And again, everything we prepare for is defensive in nature,” Broyles added.
Earlier, Russian navy warships held a drill off the coast of Kaliningrad.
At a 2016 summit in Warsaw, NATO members decided to establish an enhanced forward presence on the eastern bloc.
Fully deployed by July 2017, NATO’s enhanced forward presence comprises four multinational battalion-size battlegroups, provided by framework nations and other contributing member states on a voluntary, fully sustainable and rotational basis.
Albania, the Czech Republic, Iceland, Italy, Montenegro, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain contribute to the Canadian-led battlegroup in Latvia.
In Lithuania, the German-led battlegroup is contributed by Belgium, the Czech Republic, Iceland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Norway.
Denmark, France and Iceland contribute to the UK-led battlegroup in Estonia, while Croatia, Romania, and the UK are part of the US-led battlegroup in Poland.
