Photo By Staff Sgt. James Bunn | U.S. Green Berets and Georgian special operations forces soldiers leave a simulated...... read more read more
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TBILISI, Georgia – Special operations forces from the country Georgia joined their counterparts from the United States and 11 other nations to participate in Exercise Trojan Footprint, the largest special operations exercise in Europe, held March 5-15, 2024. Elements of the exercise took place near Georgia’s capital of Tbilisi and the resort city of Butami on the Black Sea, as well as several locations throughout Europe. This year marks the third time Georgia has participated in the exercise and for the first time, the small nation bordering Russia took a leading role in the exercise.
Georgia’s special operations forces command group played a major role in the exercise, conducting tactical actions, command exercises, and participating in a number of other operations with over 1,700 troops from partner nations.
“Trojan Footprint was a very positive dynamic for us within the special operations field,” said Georgian Lt. Col. Dimitri Demetraidze, operations planner for the Georgian Defence Forces during the exercise. “This time we were able to combine kinetic actions with operational planning.”
According to Demetraidze, Georgia had the highest participation rate in the exercise despite the fact that Georgia is not a member of NATO. Georgian participation helps increase security throughout the European continent while benefiting NATO and other partner nations.
“I think this benefits our partners by displaying the interoperability between multiple nations,” said a commander of a U.S. special operations team, who can’t be identified for security reasons. “While we're here in Georgia, the different participants are all working together and getting exposure to a broad array of how to conduct military business. Hopefully it's a way for them to take those lessons learned and get consistently better.”
As a multinational exercise, Georgia and other participants were not the only groups to benefit from the training. U.S. special operations forces units worked together with Allies and partners to improve their own skills and abilities.
“We benefit from this because we get to work with our partner nations that we don't work with on a regular basis,” said the U.S. special operations commander. “It's a good learning experience for all the different war fighting functions within our formation to experience different types of scenarios that we may not otherwise experience.”
Trojan Footprint is a U.S. European Command-approved exercise conducted by U.S. Special Operations Command Europe (SOCEUR) and is designed to demonstrate U.S., NATO Ally, and partner nations’ ability to respond decisively to any threat from any direction. This year, Trojan Footprint 24 is under the umbrella of NATO exercise Steadfast Defender 2024.
| Date Taken: | 04.19.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 04.19.2024 08:09 |
| Story ID: | 468924 |
| Location: | TBILISI, GE |
| Web Views: | 324 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Georgia Hosts Trojan Footprint 2024 with NATO partners, by SSG James Bunn, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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