MoD: Hundreds of UK military personnel to join Nato Exercise Steadfast Dart in response to Russia aggression

According to the Ministry of Defence, Exercise Steadfast Dart 25 will showcase the alliance’s readiness, capability and commitment to defend Nato territories. The UK’s 1st Division – headquartered in York – will be in command of all of the alliance’s land forces while they are in eastern Europe.

The exercise marks the first deployment under the bloc’s new Allied Reaction Force, which replaced the Nato Response Force last year to deal “swiftly and effectively” with “any threat in an evolving security environment” during peacetime, crisis and conflict.

Luke Pollard said: “This Government wants the UK to be Nato’s leading European nation. Exercise Steadfast Dart demonstrates our unshakeable commitment to Nato and highlights the UK’s key leadership role in the alliance. As we approach the three-year anniversary of Russia’s illegal full-scale invasion of Ukraine, we must continue to strengthen our collective defences together to deter (Russian president Vladimir) Putin effectively.”

Along with more than 2,600 personnel, the UK Government has said it will contribute 730 vehicles to the exercise. Foxhound patrol and Jackal high mobility weapons platform vehicles will be among the deployments, and they will return to the UK once two exercises are complete at the end of February.

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The war between Russia and Ukraine continues to rage, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky allowing a deal which saw Russian gas supplies travel to European customers through the country expire. At a summit in Brussels last month, he vowed Kyiv would not allow Moscow to use the transits to earn “additional billions … on our blood, on the lives of our citizens”.

Before the war, Russia supplied nearly 40 per cent of the European Union’s pipeline natural gas. Gas flowed through four pipeline systems – one under the Baltic Sea, one through Belarus and Poland, one through Ukraine, and one under the Black Sea through Turkey to Bulgaria.

After the war started, Russia cut off most supplies through the Baltic and Belarus-Poland pipelines, citing disputes over a demand for payment in roubles. The Baltic pipeline was blown up in an act of sabotage, but details of the attack remain murky. The Russian cut-off caused an energy crisis in Europe.