Baltic Sea Military Exercise Beefed Up in Tense Circumstances With Russia

Thousands of US and NATO forces and dozens of tanks, helicopters, planes and ships are staging a variety of maneuvers during two major Baltic Sea-region exercises in June, including a mock beach landing in Ustka, Poland on Wednesday. In this video, Polish Navy officers Lt. Maciej Skladanowski and Ensign Izabela Bielawska fire a .50-caliber machine gun aboard US destroyer Jason Dunham. Bielawska can be seen laughing after the gun’s recoil kick.

The beach landing exercise is taking place about 100 miles to the south of Kaliningrad, a heavily militarized part of Russia sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania.

Polish and Baltic state leaders, concerned about a resurgent Russia, have been welcoming allied forces to their land and sea test bases, the Associated Press reported. Polish and Romanian leaders have asked for a more permanent allied military presence ahead of next year’s NATO summit in Warsaw.

Paricipation in Baltops, an annual event, has been significantly beefed up this year. NATO’s eastern flank maneuvers began in early June, and include the Noble Jump exercise, also in Poland, to assess the effectiveness of a new rapid-deployment force. Credit: YouTube/Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet