NATO announces largest war exercises since the Cold War.

In a move that will be seen as a provocation in Moscow, NATO is set to initiate its most extensive exercise since the Cold War next week, involving approximately 90,000 personnel in the months-long war games in Europe, as announced by General Chris Cavoli, the alliance’s top commander.

I would like to announce the kick-off of Exercise Steadfast Defender 2024 commencing next week and running through May.
Exercise Steadfast Defender 2024 will be the largest NATO exercise in decades, with participation from approximately 90,000 forces from all 31 Allies and our good partner Sweden. The Alliance will demonstrate its ability to reinforce the Euro-Atlantic area via trans-Atlantic movement of forces from North America. This reinforcement will occur during a simulated emerging conflict scenario against a near-peer adversary.

Participating in the war games will be over 1,100 combat vehicles, comprising 133 tanks and 533 infantry fighting vehicles. Additionally, the line up includes more than 50 naval vessels, ranging from aircraft carriers to destroyers, along with approximately 80 helicopters, drones, and fighter jets.

Coincidently or not, one day before, on the 17th January, Yulia Zhdanova, a member of the Russian delegation to the Vienna talks on military security and arms control at the 1066th plenary session of the OSCE Forum for Security Cooperation said,

“Ostentatious training exercises of strategic bombers of the [North Atlantic] Alliance to carry out missile strikes on Russian facilities, the rehearsal of NATO offensive operations on the borders of the Union State [of Russia and Belarus], the utilization by the collective West of the territories of a number of post-Soviet countries, coupled with calls by officials in some of the bloc’s countries to prepare for war against Russia provoke a game of nerves and further compress the spring of escalation”

For decades, Moscow has consistently expressed apprehensions regarding NATO’s expansion toward its borders, perceiving it as an existential threat. President Vladimir Putin has previously highlighted Ukraine’s aspiration to join the alliance as a significant factor contributing to the ongoing conflict.

Here at Flat Out News we believe that such a move can only have the effect of a Potential Europe wide escalation of the war in Ukraine against Russia. We will follow closely for any Russian Response.