On November 4, Sunday, Exercise Iron Wolf began. The exercise will be running for two weeks, not only in military areas, Gaižiūnai and General Silvestras Žukauskas training fields, but also civilian territories and surrounding areas. Columns of military vehicles are planned to move by public roads and inhabited territories.
"We are holding Exercise Iron Wolf in order to train and assess readiness s of units to redeploy quickly to any location within Lithuania and to engage in defensive actions there. It is our largest exercise this semester that gives us the opportunity to train together with our allies. We seek to train mobility of units, their ability to quickly reach any part of Lithuania, to carry out defensive operations and eliminate forces of the adversary, so combat vehicles will be moving from their homebases to areas of assembly and areas of operations during this exercise," officer conducting the exercise Commander of the Mechanised Infantry Brigade Iron Wolf Colonel Mindaugas Steponavičius said.
The main objective of the exercise is to train and assess the ability to plan and complete defensive actions, as well as interoperability in joint operations with allies and partners , of the NATO enhance Forward Presence Battalion Battle Group and the Lithuanian Grand Duchess Birutė Uhlan Battalion, both assigned to the MIB Iron Wolf. During the first week of the exercise units will train operating together with subunits assigned for exercise purposes, during the second week complex force-on-force field training will take place. Soldiers will also practise live firing at firing ranges of the military training areas.
In total, Exercise Iron Wolf will involve roughly 3.5 thousand participants from 14 countries. Aside from the organiser, the Lithuanian forces, and from soldiers manning the NATO enhanced Forward Presence Battalion Battle Group from Germany, Belgium, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Norway and Luxembourg, the exercise will be also attended by soldiers from the United Kingdom, Estonia, Italy, U.S., Canada, Slovenia, and Ukraine.
During the exercise roughly 1.000 military vehicles - tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, armoured personnel carriers, artillery systems, provision and administrative transport - will move via Lithuania's roads. The Lithuanian Armed Forces invite Lithuanian residents to be attentive and patient.
Exercise Iron Wolf is an international exercise held to assess readiness to plan and execute military operations of each rotation of the NATO enhanced Forward Presence Battalion Battle Group and one of the subordinate Lithuanian battalions of the Mechanised Infantry Brigade Iron Wolf.
Media advisory:
Distinguished Visitors and Media Day of Exercise Iron Wolf is planned to take place on November 19.
More information about the exercise at: MIB Iron Wolf Project Officer Maj Skomantas Povilionis, +370 612 78315
Photo credit: archive of the Lithuanian Armed Forces.
