NATO War Games Drill Massing 50 Warships, 30K Troops on Russia's Border

A planned NATO exercise with about 30,000 troops from more than 25 countries from Europe and North America began in northern Norway on Monday.

NATO said that the drill, named Cold Response that includes 200 aircraft and 50 vessels, was “not linked to Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified invasion of Ukraine.”

The drill in NATO-member Norway, which shares a nearly 200-kilometer (124-mile) land border with Russia, will be held just a few hundred kilometers from the Russian border and was planned long before Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The exercise, just a few miles from the Russian border, was planned long before Moscow's invasion of Ukraine but its significance has now been heightened.

"This exercise is extremely important for the security of Norway and its allies. We will practice an allied reinforcement of Norway," Norwegian Defence Minister Odd Roger Enoksen.

"It is not being held because of the Russian authorities' attack on Ukraine, but given the backdrop there is a heightened significance."

The purpose of the drill is to test how Norway and other NATO members would work together on land, in the air, and at sea in line with Article 5 of NATO's charter, which requires member states to come to the aid of another member state under attack.

"I find it totally normal, perhaps now more than ever, to train together to demonstrate our capacity and our willingness to defend our values and our way of life", stated General Yngve Odlo, head of Norway's Joint Headquarters and in charge of Cold Response.