Drills

Anakonda 16 exercise opens with ceremony in Warsaw

Thousands of NATO troops spread out across much of Poland as alliance commanders gathered Monday at Warsaw’s National Defense University to mark the official start of the multinational training exercise Anakonda 16.

Originally established in 2006 as a solely Polish exercise, Anakonda has grown from its humble beginnings to a 24-nation, 31,000-troop event. It now serves mainly to test NATO’s response to potential aggression from Russia against member states along the alliance’s eastern periphery.

Polish Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz opened Monday’s ceremony by speaking of the growing importance of Anakonda to a crowd of dignitaries, including U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Mark A. Milley and U.S. Army Europe commander Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges.

“The Anakonda exercise is the biggest allied exercise in independent Poland,” Macierewicz said. “However, taking into consideration the difficult circumstances in Poland and also in the eastern flank, it is very important to highlight that ... this exercise has a purely defensive character.”

Anakonda 16 is the largest iteration of the biennial exercise yet, stretching 450 miles across Poland.

Thousands of troops have arrived in Poland in to begin the 10-day series of engagements, including air-ground assaults and electronic warfare scenarios. Airborne units, infantrymen, medics, military police and aviation units will operate jointly throughout the exercise, which culminates in a massive live-fire event led by the U.S. Army’s 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division.