TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Major NATO manoeuvres kick off in Norway
Cold Response 2022, planned long before Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, aims to test how Norway would manage Allied reinforcements on its soil, in line with Article 5 of NATO's charter which requires member states to come to the aid of another member state under attack.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Armoured vehicles of NATO's rapid reaction force brigade in Norway for the military exercise Cold Response 22 arrive at Borg Havn in Fredrikstad, Norway on March 10, 2022. While the war rages in Ukraine, NATO and its partners are sharpening their weapons to test in Norway their ability to come to the aid of one of their own. Some 30,000 soldiers, 200 planes and around fifty ships from 27 nations... Cold Response 2022, the biggest exercise involving NATO this year, will help Western armies to become hardened in combat in extreme cold on land, by sea and in the skies, including in arctic latitudes, from March 14. (AFP/Geir Olsen)
M
ajor military exercises involving 30,000 NATO troops and partner countries kicked off in Norway on Monday as tensions escalate between the West and Russia over the Ukraine war.
Cold Response 2022, planned long before Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, aims to test how Norway would manage Allied reinforcements on its soil, in line with Article 5 of NATO's charter which requires member states to come to the aid of another member state under attack.
"It's a defensive exercise", said General Yngve Odlo, in charge of Cold Response.
"It's not a military operation with an offensive purpose", he told television channel TV2.
Organised every two years, the naval, air and ground drills are held over vast swathes of Norway's territory, including above the Arctic Circle.
They will however stay several hundred kilometres (miles) away from Norway's border with Russia.
Russia declined Norway's invitation to send observers.
"Any build-up of NATO military capabilities near Russia's borders does not help to strengthen security in the region", Russia's embassy in Norway told AFP last week.
Russia "has the capacity out there to follow (the exercise) in an entirely legitimate manner", Odlo said.
"I really hope they respect existing agreements", he added.
As during previous editions of the exercise, neighbouring Sweden and Finland, which are military non-aligned but increasingly close partners of NATO, will also participate in Cold Response.
Russia's invasion has renewed debate in the two Nordic countries about possible NATO membership.
Some 200 aircraft and 50 vessels are also taking part in the manoeuvres, which last until April 1.
The exercise began Monday with naval operations and the deployment on land of part of NATO's rapid reaction force.
Earlier on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged NATO to impose a no-fly zone over his country or see its member states attacked by Russia.
"If you don't close our sky, it is only a matter of time before Russian rockets fall on your territory, on NATO territory," he said in a video address released shortly after midnight.
He spoke a day after thirty-five people were killed and more than 130 injured when Russian troops launched air strikes on a military training ground outside Ukraine's western city of Lviv, near the border with NATO member Poland.
