Britain launches biggest military exercise since Cold War to prepare for President Putin’s next move

On May 11, the British Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced the planned exercises, which are among the largest deployments since the Cold War. These exercises will include tanks, self-propelled crawler artillery and armored fighting vehicles. The drills are expected to take place in countries that fear Russian attack, such as the Baltic states.

The MoD stated: “The exercises are intended to demonstrate the ability of British forces to integrate with NATO allies and preserve peace across the continent. NATO is a defensive alliance, designed to hold These exercises are part of ensuring the alliance is ready to respond to any threat from any direction.”

Part of the new exercise, Arrow, began earlier this month with British troops deployed to Finland as part of the British Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF).

According to Sky News Europe correspondent Adam Parsons, Finland, which shares a 1,300km-long border with Russia, has been preparing for a possible conflict for decades, including the conversion of hubs. Recreation centers and many other community facilities in Helsinki turned into bomb shelters.

The country is also said to be considering joining NATO. Former Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb told AL Jazeera: “I think the decision on Finland’s NATO membership was made on February 24, at 5 a.m. local time, when President Putin started a special military operation in Ukraine. Everyone knows that if Putin can attack Ukraine, he can also attack Finland and Sweden.”

Finland also reportedly recorded cyberattacks from the Kremlin. Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said they needed to be prepared for “all moves from Russia”.

Exercise Arrow will take place with British Challenger 2 tanks in cooperation with Finnish soldiers, more than 3,000 allied troops also participate.

Meanwhile, troops from the Royal Welsh Combat Force and the Royal British Tank Regiment will be deployed on the Estonia-Latvian border along with 18,000 NATO troops as part of Exercise Hedgehog.

In addition, the Op CABRIT exercise includes French and Danish forces, and part of a British-led NATO task force permanently deployed to Estonia.

Estonian Foreign Minister Eva-Maria Liimets said that Russia is not a direct threat at the moment, but Tallinn’s future depends strongly on the support of its allies.

Estonia has also banned four Russian and one Belarusian television stations in an attempt to block the flow of Kremlin propaganda in the country.

Rihards Kols, chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the Latvian parliament, warned that the Baltic states needed more support from their allies to guard against President Putin. “We welcome these reinforcements, but it’s not enough – it’s not enough,” Mr. Kols said of the previous deployment of thousands of NATO troops across the Baltic states.

Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky said the next step in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s campaign could be to attack the Baltic states. “We have to understand that, for Putin, this is not a war with Ukraine. He is fighting the US and NATO. He has said this many times as well,” he said.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were part of the Soviet Union until its collapse in the 1990s and are now NATO members.