NATO is going to carry out the largest air defense exercise since its creation between June 12 and 23, in Germany, with the participation of ten thousand troops and 220 aircraft from 25 countries.
Called Air Defender 2023 (AD23), the exercise will be coordinated by the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) and Sweden and Japan will participate in it, two countries that are not part of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization).
Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark, Slovenia, the United States, Estonia, Spain, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, the Netherlands, Poland, the United Kingdom, Romania and Turkey are also participating.
“We want to demonstrate the agility and speed of the Air Force as a first response and show the air power of NATO,” said the commander of the Luftwaffe, Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz, quoted in an Atlantic Alliance publication.
The German official said that 100 US planes will fly in Europe during the exercise to highlight that the transatlantic dimension “is a strong proof of NATO cohesion and solidarity.”
NATO’s biggest air defense exercise will take place in the midst of Russia’s war against Ukraine, launched by Moscow on February 24, 2022.
NATO countries have supplied Ukraine’s armed forces with weapons to fight Russian troops in what Moscow views as a “proxy war” waged by the West against Russia.
The collaboration of the countries participating in AD23 “allows a credible deterrence against a potential aggressor”, according to the head of the Luftwaffe.
The exercise takes place against the backdrop of the fictitious invasion of Germany by special forces from the Brückner organization and other forces from the eastern military alliance OCCASUS (occaso, in Portuguese), after years of confrontation with NATO.
Russia, which led the Cold War Warsaw Pact military alliance between the former Soviet Union and the West, has deployed a private military organization, the Wagner Group, to fight in Ukraine.
Led by businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, an ally of President Vladimir Putin, the Wagner Group was at the forefront of the battle for Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, considered the longest and bloodiest since the start of the war.
In the fictional AD23 setting, air and ground forces brought into Germany from the east control about a quarter of the country and attempt to push into the Baltic Sea and conquer the port of Rostock (north).
“As a result, the Western alliance triggers a defense state [coletiva do território da aliança] under Article 5 of the NATO Treaty”, according to the exercise scenario published by the Luftwaffe.
Article 5 states that an armed attack against a NATO member state in Europe or the United States represents an attack against all NATO countries and can trigger a collective response.
The treaty was signed on April 4, 1949, in Washington, by the 12 founding countries of NATO, including Portugal, which did not participate in the AD23 exercise.
Troops and aircraft participating in AD23 will be stationed in Germany, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic.
“Participants will practice Composite Air Operations at training areas over Germany and carry out so-called round-trip missions to the Baltic States and Romania,” according to NATO.
The three air exercise areas, in eastern, northern and southern Germany, will only be used for two to four hours a day, at various altitudes, and for safety reasons will be closed to civilian air traffic during these periods.
“Aircraft noise cannot be completely avoided. Exercises like Air Defender 23 are an important part of military training and a prerequisite for the German Air Force and its allies to fulfill the mission in Alliance and national defense,” he told the Luftwaffe.
Source: TSF
