Steadfast Defender 2024: NATO Gears Up for Largest Exercises with 90,000 Troops

The North Atlantic Alliance will conduct the largest exercises in the past decade.

This information was reported by the Reuters news agency.

The Steadfast Defender 2024 exercise, which will be held from next week to May, will involve about 90,000 troops from NATO-member states and Sweden.

“Steadfast Defender 2024 will demonstrate NATO’s ability to rapidly deploy forces from North America,” Supreme Allied Commander Europe Christopher Cavoli said after a two-day meeting of national defense chiefs.

The purpose of large-scale exercises is to practice the protection of the eastern flank of NATO.

Recently, Militarnyi reported that the United Kingdom will send its troops to participate in Steadfast Defender 2024.

The deployment will include 16,000 British Army personnel to be based in Eastern Europe from February to June, a Royal Navy carrier strike group and submarines, as well as F35B Lightning II fighters and reconnaissance aircraft.

“I can announce today that the UK will be sending some 20,000 personnel to take part in one of NATO’s largest deployments since the end of the Cold War,” stated Grant Shapps, UK Secretary of State for Defense.

Recently, it was reported that the scenario of NATO exercises, involving a major Russian attack, fell into the hands of the German newspaper Bild.

The scenario describes Russia-West actions month after month, culminating in the deployment of hundreds of thousands of NATO soldiers and the imminent outbreak of war in the summer of 2025.

In early January, it was reported that next year Sweden would send troops to Latvia as part of a Canadian-led force to deter Russia from attacking.

The Swedish Prime Minister, Ulf Kristersson, made this statement amid the fact that his country is not yet a full member of NATO.