During the exercise warships drilled group maneuvers in the Baltic Sea, as well as live fire, radio communication and search and rescue procedures, damage control, mine counter measures, escort operations, and suspect ship boarding. The coast-based part of the exercise will focus on defending military-controlled territories, port terminals, and piers against hybrid and terrorist threats.
“Naval operations are large in scope in terms of both, the area of actions, and the need for attentiveness and thoroughness, because controlling and coordinating maneuvers of ships from different nations is a responsible and challenging task. That is why the most important objective of this exercise was for the military personnel and officers from different countries to match their procedures while they were carrying out exercise tasks, to make improvements where needed, and to ensure we can be successful in joint operations. Operating jointly with the Land Force, Air Force, Special Operations Forces, and NATO allies, the Navy has demonstrated that is is able to act in a complex environment and capable of ensuring that the Navy tasks are executed. It also had a unique opportunity to practice the currently developed littoral area and port defence concept,” said Commander of the Lithuanian Navy Captain (Navy) Giedrius Premeneckas.
More than a half of the training audience were Lithuanian soldiers and officers. The exercise involved nearly all the Lithuanian Navy ships, State Border Guard Service Aleksandras Barauskas ship, Air Force helicopters, and the Motorized Infantry Brigade Griffin and the National Defence Volunteer Force on land. The Combat Divers Service of the Lithuanian Special Operations Forces also honed interoperability, trained full spectrum underwater and land operations and carried out other tasks with the U.S. Navy SEAL teams at Exercise Baltic Fortress 21.
Exercise Baltic Fortress 2021 involved military personnel from the United Kingdom, Estonia, Canada, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, and Germany, aside from Lithuania. The exercise was linked to the exercise U.S. European Command and U.S. Naval Forces Europe BALTOPS 21, the largest international exercise in the Baltic Sea.
