More than 1,000 U.S. troops were moving across Eastern Europe on Tuesday on several training exercises, the latest effort to reassure allied nations anxious about recent Russian military aggression, a Pentagon official said.
About 200 paratroopers with the Army's Italy-based 173rd Airborne Brigade jumped into the Smarden training area in Romania along with heavy artillery equipment including howitzers. Simultaneously, up to 600 soldiers from the Army's Germany-based 2nd Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment, launched a simulated ground assault from Romania's Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base near the Black Sea.
The two Army units will link up at Smarden and train alongside Romanian forces to conduct a live-fire combined-arms exercise to "seize an objective," said Army Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman.
At the same time, about 400 soldiers from the 3rd Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment, which has been training lately in the Baltic region and Poland, began "Operation Dragoon Ride" on Saturday.
From Estonia, the soldiers, along with about 120 vehicles including Stryker combat vehicles, will conduct a 1,100-mile "road march" across five international borders, passing through Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and the Czech Republic on their way back to their home station in Vilseck, Germany.
The operation will "demonstrate the freedom of movement that exists within NATO" and "will provide a highly visible demonstration of our commitment to the residents in each of the nations and the resolve of NATO as an alliance," Warren said.
The exercises are part of Operation Atlantic Resolve, which began last year and aims to reassure the United States' NATO allies, especially newer member nations in Eastern Europe. Many of those nations have requested a greater presence of U.S. military forces to counter fears of Russian aggression in nearby non-NATO countries.
Andrew Tilghman is the executive editor for Military Times. He is a former Military Times Pentagon reporter and served as a Middle East correspondent for the Stars and Stripes. Before covering the military, he worked as a reporter for the Houston Chronicle in Texas, the Albany Times Union in New York and The Associated Press in Milwaukee.
