Closing Exercise in Serbia

Speaking at the disused “airport" of Kovin, near Belgrade, Col. Nenad Stretenovic, Chief of Staff, Serbian 1st Army Brigade said after the display, “The soldiers of the two brigades had executed the joint tasks with perfect professionalism over the last few days. I congratulate all participants on the successful joint work and would like to express my special appreciation to the soldiers of the HDF 5th “Bocskai István" Infantry Brigade for their performance given here".

The training of the Serb and Hungarian platoons of a multinational company was based on a fictitious scenario, in which the troops of the two nations had an excellent opportunity to exchange experience. According to the initial set-up, the forces under the joint command were deployed in a peace support operation. Making good use of the available options, the soldiers demonstrated their capability to react to different situations on multiple locations during the execution of the tasks. The members of the board of military attachés accredited to Serbia also inspected the closing exercise.

On the first site, the soldiers had to search two buildings and neutralize the enemy forces there. After the attack, they had to transport the surviving insurgents from the site. On the next scene, the own forces were just patrolling the area when the insurgents laid a combined ambush to hinder their movement.

In what followed, the common platoon representing the UN military forces demonstrated the operation of a temporary checkpoint, where their task was to conduct crowd riot control (CRC) as well as checking the flow of traffic. During the last phase of the display, the allied forces had to neutralize the armed insurgents. One of the soldiers was wounded in action, so after the first responders treated him on the spot, his comrades immediately requested MEDEVAC by helicopter.

Speaking on behalf of the Hungarian partners, Col. László Garas, Chief of Land Forces Operations and Training Directorate, HDF Joint Force Command thanked the organizers for the exercise. “I find it very important that a friendly relationship exists between the two neighbour countries. We would like to carry on with this cooperation, which has already proved to be very useful for the soldiers of both nations, because this is the way for us to improve our peacekeeping skills", the colonel said.

Military cooperation between the two nations started five years ago. The annually held joint training event provides the soldiers with opportunity to learn about the operational procedures of each other’s armed forces, and to develop the cooperation needed for the execution of joint tasks. Thus, the lessons learned on exercises in previous years have already been integrated into this year’s program.