The Washington Post reports that “the biggest military exercise in eastern Europe since the Cold War kicked off in earnest Tuesday as roughly 2,000 NATO paratroopers were set to fill the skies over Poland.”  

“The operation, called Anakonda 2016, is billed as a Polish-led training exercise and will span roughly 10 days. More than 30,000 troops from 24 different countries, including non-NATO states such as Finland and Kosovo, are set to participate in a series of events spread across Poland. The exercise is designed to emulate a ‘joint defensive operation on a large scale,’ according to a release by the U.S. Army .”  

“Components of Anakonda 2016 include live-fire training, the deployment of air defenses, bridging operations across the Vistula river, operating in an electronic warfare environment and unspecified ‘cyber’ operations, according to the Army release. Anakonda will also pull in resources from two other training exercises occurring simultaneously in the region called Saber Strike 16 and Swift Response 16.”