In Bydgoszcz, Poland, a training and educational center for the training of the military of the North Atlantic Alliance and Ukraine will start operating.
NATO will open a military training centre in Poland
NATO has decided to open a joint training centre in Bydgoszcz, where the Ukrainian military will study and train together with the servicemen of the Alliance.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced this.
Today, we decided to establish a joint NATO-Ukraine training and military education centre in Bydgoszcz, Poland. This will allow Ukraine to share lessons from the Russian war and create a framework for Ukrainian forces to train alongside NATO forces. We will continue to stand by Ukraine — for its security and our security.
Jens Stoltenberg
Secretary General of NATO
He noted that this decision still needs to be clarified in many details, but the main thing is that the allies at the political level have decided to create a training centre. According to Stoltenberg, the initiative will be implemented in the coming months.
So today's decision is part of that process. The training centre will allow the exchange of lessons learned from the Russian War. This will be useful for us and create a framework platform for training the troops of allied countries. Our experts are currently working out the details, and I expect that NATO leaders will be able to decide later this year.
NATO training in Europe: what is known
In the first half of 2024, NATO conducts a series of exercises under a common code, Steadfast Defender-24 . Poland will be one of the host countries and will place many allied soldiers and equipment on its territory.
It is noted that the exercises started when the amphibious dock ship USS Gunston Hall left Norfolk (Virginia in the USA), after which a series of trans-Atlantic operations will begin.
The departure of the USS Gunston Hall marks the first tactical movement of the Steadfast Defender 24. The Canadian ship Charlottetown will depart Halifax, Nova Scotia, for Europe later this month.
NATO clarifies that the planned exercises will demonstrate the ability of the Alliance to quickly deploy forces from North America and elsewhere to strengthen Europe's defence.
As part of Steadfast Defender-24, Polish national exercises with the participation of the armed forces of other countries called Dragon-24 will occur.
As the Polish Army General Staff emphasises, such exercises are defensive and not directed against any country.
