VILNIUS, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Iron Wolf, Lithuania's biggest international military exercise in the second half of this year kicks off on Sunday to enhance mobility.
The international military exercise is attended by forces from 14 countries.
During the training, Lithuanian Army and the personnel from Germany-led enhanced forward presence (EFP) multinational battalion deployed in Lithuania, which includes soldiers from Belgium, Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Norway, and Luxembourg, are joined by personnel from Britain, Estonia, Italy, the U.S., Canada, Slovenia and Ukraine.
According to Lithuanian Army, around 3,500 troops and 1,000 units of military hardware are involved in the training.
The exercise will last for two weeks.
This year, the Iron Wolf is held not only in military polygons, but will involve "civil territories and their surroundings", movement of military hardware on public roads, according to the Lithuanian Army.
This year's exercise is aimed at training the ability to rapidly redeploy the forces to different parts of the country to conduct defense activities, according to the Lithuanian Army.
"Uniqueness of this exercise is the movement of around 1,000 units of various military vehicles on Lithuanian public roads, including battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, armored vehicles, artillery cannons," the Project Officer of Mechanized Infantry Brigade Iron Wolf Major Skomantas Povilionis told Lithuanian national radio LRT on Sunday.
"One of the main tasks is to train the mobility of the military units," said Povilionis.
During the drill, Lithuanian and allied forces will also train combined field operations, conduct battle fire exercises.
Lithuania, a small Baltic country with a population of less than 3 million, is NATO's Eastern-flank member country.
In recent years, Lithuania has increased its defense spending and stepped up military training citing security tensions in the Eastern Europe.
