Country music keeping fuel tanker driver going during major Nato exercise
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Country music has helped a fuel tanker driver from Northamptonshire tackle a thousand-mile journey from the UK to Romania as part of a major Nato training exercise. Around 2,500 British personnel, along with hundreds of vehicles, are moving across Europe by land, air and sea to take part in Steadfast Dart, Nato’s largest exercise in 2025.
Lance corporal Lee Moulton, 30, from Kettering, has described the 1,400-mile journey to Romania as a “long drive” with country music helping keep him going. Speaking to the PA news agency, he said: “Nothing has happened out of the ordinary, but it’s been different to driving in the UK.
“It’s been an experience, I’ve deployed to a few countries before and this road move is definitely something different. “Luckily, we all know each other, we’ve worked with each other back in the UK. “So when it comes to listening to music or playing games, you find ways to entertain yourself when you’re on the road, it’s just the two of you, no comms.”.
Steadfast Dart comes ahead of the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Friday, with much of the exercise taking place in Romania, which borders Ukraine. The exercise is the first major deployment of Nato’s Allied Reaction Force (ARF), which replaced the Nato Response Force last year, and is intended to test Nato’s ability to deploy under pressure.
