Berlin, Jun. 13, (dpa/GNA) - The largest air force manoeuvres in the history of NATO which began over the skies of Germany demonstrate the defensive readiness of the western alliance and the German armed forces, Berlin’s defence minister Boris Pistorius said Monday.
Twenty-five nations are taking part in two weeks of exercises involving some 10,000 soldiers and 250 aircraft from 25 nations.
Led by Germany’s Bundeswehr armed forces, the Air Defender 2023 drills last until June 23 and are aimed at training for a fictitious attack by an eastern aggressor.
“Especially air forces are of central importance in the event of an attack because they are first responders to secure the population and also their own armed forces,” Pistorius told broadcaster RTL on Monday evening.
The exercise has “the goal of making it clear that NATO and the German Air Force are ready to defend themselves,” Pistorius asserted.
This also applied to Russian President Vladimir Putin and to anyone “who threatens our freedom and our security,” the German official added.
Although the manoeuvres are taking place during a raging war between Russia and possible NATO candidate Ukraine, officials from Germany’s Air Force say the idea for the drills dates back to 2018, before Russia began its large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“This exercise is not directed as a signal against anyone. It is a signal to us, directed inwards, into NATO … that we are capable of defending this country and this alliance,” said Germany’s Air Force inspector Ingo Gerhartz.
On Monday, flights to get familiar with the airspace and to bolster the cooperation of the different nations were to take place, Gerhartz said.
The German Air Force said it wants to avoid an escalation with regard to Russia. “We are doing everything to ensure that it does not have an escalating effect,” Gerhartz told broadcaster RBB.
As an example, he said, “We will not make any flights in the direction of Kaliningrad.”
The manoeuvres are taking place amid a peak in summer air travel.
Three airspaces in Germany are directly affected by the exercise: parts of northern Germany and the North Sea, parts of eastern Germany and the Baltic Sea, and parts of southwestern Germany.
But on Monday most of Germany’s airports have reported no major knock-on effects of the exercise on passenger travel.
Hamburg was the only major airport in Germany to report significant delays.
At the country’s biggest airport in Frankfurt there were no “noticeable effects” in terms of delays or flight cancellations as of Monday morning, a spokeswoman for the operating company Fraport said.
Berlin’s international airport BER had so far seen “no significant effects for passengers,” a spokeswoman for the airport told dpa. To what extent there will be delays due to the NATO manoeuvre in the course of the day, “we cannot estimate yet.”
Cologne/Bonn Airport and Dusseldorf Airport in the southwest of Germany and Munich Airport in the southern state of Bavaria reported no disruptions.
However, the aviation industry expects disruptions could increase as the military exercise gets into full swing.
The general manager of the aviation industry association BDL, Matthias von Randow, pointed out on Monday that there were “comparatively little military flight operations” on the day the large-scale exercise opened.
“We assume that the disruptions to civilian air traffic will increase in the following days, especially with delays in the evening hours,” von Randow explained.
GNA