While Sweden’s application for NATO membership is blocked by Hungary’s veto, Stockholm will send an 800-strong battalion to Latvia for ‘Steadfast Defender’ 2024, the largest Atlantic Alliance exercise in 35 years. The Swedish troops will be part of the first line of defence against a potential invasion of the Baltic countries by Russia. Although Stockholm has not yet joined the US-led military alliance, the Swedish army has already been enlisted by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and will remain in Latvia on a six-month rotation with soldiers and armoured vehicles. The Steadfast Defender training started in January and will last until the end of May. It will consist of 16 different operations in specific countries and regions, including Finland, Norway and Sweden itself, involving around 90,000 soldiers and thousands of military vehicles, tracked vehicles, planes and ships: the main winter military exercise in the North, the ‘Nordic Response’, will take place from 3 to 15 March with over 20,000 soldiers from 13 nations practising in the northern parts of Norway, Finland and Sweden.
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