Lithuania — International exercise BALTOPS 2012

For the first time in Lithua­nia exer­cise BALTOPS mil­i­tary oper­a­tions at sea and on land will be con­duct­ed

From Feb­ru­ary 27 to March 2 in the Adol­fas Ramanauskas War­fare train­ing cen­ter in Nemenčinė inter­na­tion­al exercise’s BALTOPS 2012 main plan­ning con­fer­ence is ongo­ing. It involves more than 120 per­son­nel from 13 coun­tries who will coor­di­nate the final sce­nario and oper­a­tions of the exercises. 

The exer­cise will be held on June 1–16 in Lithua­nia, Latvia, Esto­nia and Germany’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters, the event is orga­nized and led by the Unit­ed States (U.S.) Naval forces in Euro­pean Com­mand (U.S. Naval Forces Europe). 

“It is essen­tial that the main “BALTOPS 2012” plan­ning con­fer­ence is held in Lithua­nia because Marines debarka­tion will be con­duct­ed there for the first time, “- said the lead exer­cise plan­ner U.S. Navy Lieu­tenant Com­man­der Justin Hsu. 

“Dur­ing the main plan­ning con­fer­ence it will take some effort to clar­i­fy and resolve issues relat­ed to the host nation sup­port. For the first time this type of exer­cise will be held with debarka­tion of troops ashore, and I have no doubt that “BALTOPS 2012” will attain inter­est”, — said Joint Chief of Staff of Lithuan­ian Armed Forces Colonel Vil­man­tas Tamo­saitis at the open­ing of the conference. 

It is planned that the BALTOPS 2012 exer­cise will involve about 30 war­ships from var­i­ous coun­tries, as well as air and land forces’ components. 

Sev­er­al objec­tives of the exer­cise are: to devel­op a com­mon under­stand­ing, trust, coop­er­a­tion and inter­ac­tion between mil­i­tary forces and per­son­nel par­tic­i­pat­ing in the exercise. 

Dur­ing this exer­cise, the mil­i­tary will car­ry out joint mar­itime oper­a­tions and maneu­ver­ing in the patrol and joint oper­a­tions with oth­er forces — air and land. 

Naval exer­cis­es BALTOPS has been tak­ing place since 1972 and was orga­nized by the U.S. and since 1993 the exer­cise has been con­duct­ed under the Part­ner­ship for Peace pro­gram. Lithuan­ian ships are involved in that mil­i­tary exer­cise since 1994. 

Source:
Min­istry of Nation­al Defense Repub­lic of Lithuania 

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