United States marines landed in the North Atlantic Ocean - on the coast of Iceland, the aircraft carrier of the American naval forces, accompanied by a group of warships crossed the line of the Arctic Circle, aircraft of the United States Air Force fly in the airspace over the Scandinavian Peninsula. All these movements did not go unnoticed in the Russian Federation.
Nearly 50,000 troops from the NATO countries of the North Atlantic bloc are completing preparations for the Trident Juncture maneuver, the largest since the Cold War, which means “a single trident”.
The official start of the exercise is scheduled for Thursday, October 25, and will last one month. NATO military plan to work out combat missions in all areas - in the air, on land and at sea, as well as in cyberspace.
The main goal of the exercise is to test the alliance’s ability to respond adequately to sudden conflict situations in various areas of the bloc’s armed forces.
All 29 NATO countries delegated their troops here. Non-members of the North Atlantic Union Finland and Sweden will also join the exercise. A total of 65 warships and support ships are expected to attend, at least 150 airplanes, helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles, 10,000 tanks, armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles and vehicles.
Despite the absence of intentions to conduct maneuvers in close proximity to the Russian borders, according to Western military experts, these exercises should give a clear signal to Russia and its military and political leadership about the intention of the bloc countries to establish control over the Arctic region.
Against this background, the statement by US Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who spoke out earlier this month at NATO headquarters in Brussels, that the Trident Juncture exercises are defensive in nature and should not be considered as a factor that could have a destabilizing effect on the military-political situation sounds rather strange. in Europe.
About 14,000 US troops will take part in the maneuvers, which means the largest presence of Americans in such events since 1991.
On Friday, a strike group led by the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman, for the first time in 30 years, crossed the line of the Arctic Circle and entered the waters of the Norwegian Sea. The crews of the ships and the flight crews of the aircraft placed on board should receive combat practice in the difficult meteorological conditions of northern latitudes with low temperatures and piercing unpredictable winds.
Two days before that, also in low-temperature conditions, the expeditionary formation of the US Marine Corps had completed landing on the southwest coast of Iceland.
Even these advance measures show that the upcoming exercises are aimed at increasing the level of preparedness of NATO military personnel and the US military in particular to act in the harsh northern latitudes in the event of potential conflicts over natural resources in the Arctic region.
