NATO Military Exercises Kick Off in Norway with 30,000 Troops

Major military exercises involving 30,000 NATO troops and partner countries kicked off in Norway as tensions escalate between the West and Russia over the Ukraine war.

Cold Response 2022, planned long before Moscow’s full-scale 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, Al-Jazeera reported.

“It’s a defensive exercise,” said General Yngve Odlo, in charge of Cold Response, on Monday.

“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 swaths of Norway, including above the Arctic Circle.

They will, however, stay several hundred kilometres away from Norway’s border with Russia. Russia declined Norway’s invitation to send observers.