Pressmediaofindia
Related Articles
13-06-2023
BERLIN: As the war in Ukraine intensifies with neither side intending to back down, Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz of the German Luftwaffe expressed the aim of the US-led NATO military aircraft drills, saying “we can defend ourselves”.
The Cold War-time Western military organization commenced its largest air force exercise Air Defender 23 in Europe Monday, portraying Russia as a potential threat to peace and security and showing coherence in the alliance.
The military drills will include 250 military jets from member countries of the NATO including Japan with Germany on the lead.
The exercises will run until June 23 and will also include the new bidder Sweden.
A total of 10,000 service members are set to participate in the drills which are aimed to show war preparedness and interoperability to protect against drones and cruise missiles in the case of any intrusion into NATO territory.
The exercise would show “beyond a shadow of a doubt the agility and the swiftness of our allied force” and was intended to send a message to countries including Russia, said US Ambassador to Germany Amy Gutmann.
“I would be pretty surprised if any world leader was not taking note of what this shows in terms of the spirit of this alliance, which means the strength of this alliance, and that includes Putin,” she told journalists.
“By synchronizing together, we multiply our force.”
Russia’s special military operation on Ukraine has reinvigorated the Western military alliance set up almost 75 years ago against the Soviet Union.
Finland and Sweden, which long kept an official veneer of neutrality to avoid conflict with Moscow, both sought membership in the US-led alliance founded back in 1949 after the operation started in February 2022. (Int’l News Desk)
