Nato stages biggest drill since Cold War with 90,000 troops and £25,000,000 tanks

It’s been 36 years since so many Nato forces amassed in Europe for a practice run of war with Russia.

The World Wide Web was still an idea, the Iron Curtain was crumbling, and the Soviet Union was starting to abandon communism.

Some 188,000 Nato troops took part in Reforger in 1988 near the close of the Cold War, the alliance’s largest military exercise until Steadfast Defender this year.

The latest Nato drills have involved 50 naval vessels like aircraft carriers and destroyers, fighter jets like F35s and F18s, and 1,100 combat vehicles like 150 tanks and 400 armoured personnel carriers.

Roughly 90,000 military personnel from Nato’s 32 member states participated in the drill, which ends this week, less than half the number that took part in Reforger.

Roughly 1,100 combat vehicles including tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and armoured personnel carriers have been involved in Nato drills since January (Picture: Mindaugas Kulbis/AP)

But these war games come at a pivotal time for the military alliance, as Russia wages a real war, and European states hope to warn off any further aggression.

With the largest conflict since World War II raging on the continent, Europe is entering a new world, according to French President Emmanuel Macron.

‘A world where what we thought was unthinkable actually happens’, he said.

General Carsten Breuer, Germany’s defence chief, said: ‘We have five to eight years when the reconstitution of Russia forces is on a level that an attack against NATO territory might be possible.

‘For me as military, five to eight years means I have to be ready in five years.’

Russian President Vladimir Putin has capitalised on Western hesitation to send arms to Ukraine by opening up a new front with an advance on Kharkiv, the country’s second city.

He’s threatened to unleash nuclear weapons on Ukraine’s allies, he’s maintaining a campaign of sabotage, hacking and assassinations in Europe.

And he’s reportedly eyeing up further landgrabs in Estonia and Sweden, prompting Nato countries to plan a hi-tech drone wall to keep their borders safe.

The escalation, with a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, spooked Russia’s neighbours enough for Sweden and Finland to join Nato this year and last.

But the fear was most acutely felt in countries like Czechia, where memories of Russian tanks prompted people to pack bags just in case Russia’s troops captured Ukraine and kept going.

And in the Baltic states like Lithuania, where 14 protesters died and 700 were injured, some crushed under military vehicles, in 1991 as Moscow’s troops tried to crush calls for independence after decades of deportations and oppression.

Much of the six months of drills have focused on the Baltic states, Poland, Sweden and the Arctic, the areas considered most vulnerable to attack.

Countries bordering Russia have grown increasingly concerned about their neighbour’s aggression, prompting even more to join the Nato military alliance (Picture: Metro Graphics)

‘I remember perfectly the system that we lived in’, said Colonel Rimantas Jarmalavicius of the Lithuanian Army, Sky News reported.

‘I don’t want those times to come back and I don’t want my children to live in such a country as the Soviet Union.’

Lithuania hosted the deafening thud of £25million Leopard 2 tanks just a few miles from the Belarusian border during the climax of Nato’s Steadfast Defender this week.

There were also £14million Puma armoured infantry fighting vehicles and the buzz of helicopter blades chopping air.

Roughly 16,000 of the 90,000 troops taking part in Nato drills were from the UK (Picture: Mindaugas Kulbis/AP)

With Russia’s closest ally, Belarus, to the southeast, and Russia’s heavily militarised exclave of Kaliningrad to the southwest, Lithuania finds itself in a precarious position.

Only the 40-mile Polish-Lithuania border, known as the Suwałki Gap, separates Belarus and Kaliningrad.

It is likely to be one of the first points of confrontation between Russia and Nato, particularly if Putin uses them as a launchpad for invasion of the Baltics, much like it did from Belarus into Ukraine.

Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov previously described the Nato drills as a ‘threat’ when they started in January, The Moscow Times reported.

Caption: Royal Netherlands army servicemen display evacuation of a mock injured serviceman during Quadriga 2024 military exercise in Pabrade, Lithuania May 29, 2024. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins
Photographer: Ints Kalnins
Provider: REUTERS
Source: REUTERS(Credits: REUTERS)

But Nato sees the exercises as a response to decades of escalating Russian aggression as Putin tries to retain and reassert control over his neighbours.

‘The alliance has been moving its military infrastructure towards our borders for several decades without ceasing’, he said, saying Russia is ‘taking appropriate measures to deal with it’.

Military expert Keir Giles previously told Metro.co.uk that Russia’s sabotage campaign – which saw the GPS of Defence Secretary Grant Shapps’ RAF jet jammed while visiting Nato drills in Poland – is a ‘practice run’ for war.

He said: ‘If Russia were to step up all of this simultaneously, it would immobilise Europe.

Alleged Russia-backed acts of sabotage, hacking and attacks in Europe (Picture: Metro Graphics)

‘This is something who know Russia wants to do if there is a full-scale confrontation with Nato, and they want to stop Nato reinforcements from moving west to east to where they’re needed.

‘It’s easy to see this as a practice run for when Russia wants to shut Europe down.’

Although Steadfast Defender has been planned for years, it’s been informed by Russia’s recent actions and serves ‘to deter all threats’, according to the US Department of Defense.

The Nato exercises, occurring alongside a firming up of security on its Eastern flank, serves two purposes.

First it is to practice large-scale military operations involving numerous states working collaboratively over several months and thousands of kilometres.

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Second it is to demonstrate that Nato can and will defend every corner of its members’ territory with the swift deployment of reinforcements if war breaks out with Russia.

General Carsten Breuer, Germany’s chief of defence, said: ‘Today’s exercise sends a clear message – a message of deterrence to Russia.’

Roughly 5,000 German troops will be stationed in this area over the next few years as the country meets Nato’s spending target of 2% of GDP on defence for first time since the 1990s.

Like Finland and Sweden’s push to Nato, Russian aggression has sparked a newfound focus on defence in Germany.

Its government announced an £85billion fund soon after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

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