Britain and close European allies have exercised rapidly bolstering NATO’s eastern flank, demonstrating the Alliance’s ability to defend Latvia from any threat.
The UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), a partnership of ten northern European nations, has successfully concluded Exercise Joint Protector, across multiple locations in Latvia, on NATO’s eastern flank over the last month.
The exercise is a vital part of testing how quickly the JEF can deploy together across Europe to meet rapidly emerging threats. Military personnel from across the ten nations practiced deploying from their home countries, along with key equipment, to locations across Latvia.
The ability of the JEF to rapidly deploy is reliant on nations being able to seamlessly operate alongside each other.
This exercise helped improve co-ordination and cooperation between JEF nations, particularly in the early phases of any deployment.
Ukrainian military officers attended the exercise for the first-time this year as the alliance looks to learn from the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the Ukrainian military continues to work closely with its partners across Northern Europe.
Minister for the Armed Forces, Luke Pollard MP, said:
Exercise Joint Protector demonstrates our unwavering commitment to regional security, keeping us secure at home and strong abroad, as well as the strength and depth of our international partnerships.
The participation of our Ukrainian partners highlights the exercise’s importance, ensuring that we can learn from Ukraine’s hard-fought combat experience.
All nine partner nations— Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Sweden and Finland – and the UK as the Framework Nation—participated in the annual exercise, testing their collective response to regional security challenges.
The value added by the JEF is a significant contribution to both security and deterrence, giving JEF Participant Nation governments, and NATO, more options in times of crisis.
Our collective vision for the JEF’s long-term development is for it to be a key component of Northern European security: supporting our members, delivering region-specific and multi-domain defence activities, and contributing to the security of Europe as one of NATO’s Framework Nation Concept.
