General Sir Adrian Bradshaw, Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe and Romanian Defense minister Mircea Dusa on Tuesday inspected Smârdan training area from Galati County and attended an ample military exercise based on a fictional scenario. Over 2,000 military of UK, USA, Romanian and Moldovan armies took part in the exercise that consisted of a battle and a stability operation attended by several heavy infantry sub-units, tanks and artillery, as well as by the mountain hunters with the support of the Air Force.
Romanian Defense minister Mircea Dusa talked about Romania’s short and medium term targets to equip and modernize the army and about how the money allotted from NATO funds are spent on the modernization of the Romanian military infrastructure.
“We are talking about modernization of the airport in Fetesti, modernization of the facilities in Mihail Kogalniceanu, modernization of Cincu training area. We also aim at starting revamping works at Campia Turzii in the second quarter of this year. At the beginning of this week we started a new revamping investment of Base 90 from the Otopeni airport, consisting in extending the parking platform for heavy aircrafts and in revamping the command-control equipment. It is an investment of about EUR 9m, out of which EUR 7m are NATO funds and EUR 2m from the Defense budget,” Dusa said.
In his turn, Sir Adrian Bradshaw praised Romania’s commitment to support the re-enforcement of NATO’s Eastern flank and to increase the defense budget.
He said the Tuesday’s international exercise is very well organized, giving a message to all countries outside NATO that the Alliance is acting and always act together, following Article 5 of NATO Treaty. General Bradshaw also ensured the Alliance would observe the re-enforcement actions of the Eastern flank.
Previously in the day, Defence Minister Mircea Dusa also watched a troop exercise conducted on the ground to test a battery of Hawk (Homing All the Way Killer) surface-to-air missiles by the 1st ‘General Nicolae Dascalescu’ Surface-to-Air Brigade at the firing range in Mihai Bravu, Giurgiu County.
According to the Romanian Defense Ministry, the exercise was designed to train war teams in engaging air targets that use maneuvering against surface-to-air missiles at low and medium altitudes.
Nearly 200 troops took part in the exercise, using Hawk PIP III R surface-to-air missiles as well as C-27 J Spartan, IAR-330 Puma and MiG-21 LanceR aircraft that simulated attacks against the facility under air defense and the battle formation.