Ukrainian-US military computer exercise ends
Interfax-Ukraine news agency
25 Jul 06
Kiev, 25 July: The Rapid Trident-2006 joint Ukrainian-US computer-aided
command and staff exercise, which was held at the Centre for Simulation Modelling
of the National Defence Academy of Ukraine, has ended, the [Ukrainian]
Defence Ministry’s press service said today.
In addition to Ukrainian and US servicemen, exercise participants included
nearly 300 servicemen from 16 NATO member-states and partners, including
Albania, Austria, Canada, Lithuania, Germany, Sweden, Poland, Macedonia, the Czech
Republic, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and
Moldova. Representatives of the Red Cross and the OSCE joined the exercise as
observers.
The Ukrainian army was represented at the training by the 95th detached
airborne brigade and the Centre for Simulation Modelling. The USA was represented
by the National Guard of California and Florida.
The computer manoeuvres, which were held in the spirit of NATO’s Partnership
for Peace, included the preparation and conduct of a mission, in which a
multinational brigade of the coalition forces had to preserve peace in its focus
area. Its main goal was to improve interaction between the staffs and units,
make practical use of the lessons learnt from peacekeeping operations and
previous exercises and to improve understanding and cooperation between the
servicemen of different countries.
"The USA is grateful to Ukraine for jointly organizing the exercises such as
Rapid Trident that have been held over the past 12 years," the deputy
commander of the US Army Europe, Gary Speer, said.