Over 700 army vehicles have been loaded onto cargo ships ready to sail to Romania for a Nato exercise.
The armoured vehicles, fuel tankers and forklift trucks were loaded up at Marchwood, near Southampton in Hampshire to be transported for Exercise Steadfast Dart 25.
The exercise will see about 2,500 troops travel by truck and plane to join thousands of personnel from 10 Nato allies.
Operating across Romania and Bulgaria for the next two months it coincides with the three-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The UK’s 1st Division will be in command of all of Nato’s land forces in the exercise.
Speaking at Marchwood, Colonel Jim Beere, deputy chief of staff of 1st (UK) Div) which is commanding the land component, said: “This is significant for the UK, as this is the first ever time the Allied Reaction Force has deployed and the UK is providing the land component command which means we are providing the army – or land – component to that.”
He explained that Nato vehicles and troops will be travelling by different methods for the 1,429 mile (2,300km) journey to and from Romania, by sea, land and rail, to test Nato’s ability to deploy under pressure.
The aim of the exercise, is to practice a major deployment of land, sea and air forces across Europe.
The troops will conduct two exercises before returning to the UK at the end of February.
You can follow BBC Hampshire & Isle of Wight on Facebook, X, or Instagram.
