Thousands of British troops head to Romania for major Nato exercise
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Thousands of British troops are travelling across Europe as part of a major Nato training exercise ahead of the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Around 2,500 British personnel, along with hundreds of vehicles, are moving across the continent by land, air and sea to join allies in Romania.
The operation, called Steadfast Dart, aims to highlight Nato’s ability to mobilise at speed. It comes ahead of the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Friday, with much of the exercise taking place in Romania, which sits on the Ukrainian border.
Steadfast Dart 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. Speaking to the PA news agency at a Hungarian military base in Szentes, Second Lieutenant Alex Coleman described the exercise as a “hefty undertaking”.
He said: “Steadfast Dart 25 is the Nato Allied Reaction Force’s first deployment exercise, it is definitely a significant undertaking, it is a very long road move across Europe. “Steadfast Dart shows what the British Army and Nato are capable of – that we can move large convoys over long distances to enable activity wherever we need to do that.
“There have been plenty of lessons learned by all involved but we have managed to pull it all together.”. Lt Coleman said the convoy has travelled from the UK, through the Netherlands, Germany, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and will cover a distance of more than 1,400 miles (2,300km).
