NATO Allies have been rolling out big guns and practising air defence as part of Exercise Paladin Strike, allowing them to familiarise themselves with each other’s fighting tactics and capabilities. The exercise took place at Ādaži Military Base, the home of NATO’s multinational battlegroup in Latvia, which is holding various exercises ahead of Exercise Silver Arrow in September – their final test before the battlegroup’s integration into the NATO Multinational Brigade.
NATO’s multinational battlegroup in Latvia was established following the 2016 Warsaw Summit, in which Allies agreed to set up four multinational battlegroups in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, additional battlegroups were created in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. While most battlegroups are multinational battalions, some – like Latvia – are expanding to brigade-sized formations with more robust capabilities, like long-range artillery and air defence. Exercise Paladin Strike ran 1-8 August 2024.
