Armored vehicles, drones and snipers | Mission: block Putin’s ambitions

(Ādaži Base, Latvia) The ground shakes as the maple leaf-emblazoned tanks race through the Latvian countryside at full throttle. He trembles even more when the steel monsters begin to fire, again, again and again, to cover the advance of the assault groups which follow in a carefully coordinated ballet.

The maneuver is only training, the simulation of an attack to capture an enemy position. But the shootings are real. The detonations of the imposing 120 mm cannon resonate deep in the chest, like a continuous rumble of thunder. When Canadian troops and their allies activated armor, artillery and mortars in unison, the enemy’s fictitious position was submerged in a rain of fire.

Sniper snipers from 2^e battalion from the Valcartier base, lying on the ground and covered with a carpet of foliage, suddenly enter the scene. They are responsible for hitting certain key units in the opposite camp. In a flash, they hit all targets placed 450 meters in front of them. One blink and their intervention is over. Then the armored vehicles resume their advance.

The Press was able to attend the final assault in Latvia of NATO’s Resolute Warrior exercise on November 13 and 14. With 2,000 soldiers based in the small Baltic country, the Canadian Armed Forces are now the spearhead of the multinational brigade deployed by the alliance to deter any incursion by neighboring Russia on Latvian soil.

NATO, which now wishes to have troops “ready to fight” all along its eastern flank facing Russia, has entrusted this portion of Europe’s defense to Canada.

Frequently criticized by American elected officials because it still does not reach the target of 2% of GDP in military spending set by the members of the alliance, the Canadian government has gradually increased its military investments in recent years. Ottawa has released an additional $2.6 billion in 2023 for its deterrence and – if necessary – defense mission in the Baltic Sea region. The numbers on the ground have more than doubled since then. This did not prevent the criticism from being repeated Friday at the Security Forum in Halifax.

Most of the soldiers deployed at the moment come from Quebec. They will be relayed by other compatriots after six months on site.

Twelve other countries, including Italy, Spain, Denmark and Poland, are providing some 1,000 additional soldiers to the brigade, led by Gaspé colonel Cédric Aspirault, one of the officers who led the troops deployed in Quebec CHSLDs during the pandemic.

Play without a scenario

The Resolute Warrior exercise mobilized more than 3,500 soldiers and 1,000 vehicles for 10 days, 24 hours a day. The goal: to teach participants to work as a team and demonstrate their strike force. This is the largest Canadian-led multinational exercise since the 1980s.

British soldiers, who are not part of the multinational brigade, came specially to play the role of the enemies. They were free to improvise.

“I gave them the leeway to operate as if they were an unscripted opposing force. Which forced our members to be very agile,” explains the Canadian colonel.

During the exercise, the “invaders” bypassed the main NATO force and attempted to isolate Riga. Danish motorized infantry troops managed to slow their advance, before being relieved by a multinational battalion under Canadian command which responded with force. The action took place in seven different cities across Latvia, forcing NATO troops to also simulate logistics and supplies.

Result ? “We won,” says Cédric Aspirault, laughing.

This immense war game was held with the participation of 13 NATO members under Canadian command, but in the absence of the Americans. This, while the president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, threatens to no longer defend members of the alliance who do not invest enough in defense to his liking.

Present in Latvia to witness the end of the exercise, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, however, wanted to be reassuring. He says he is confident of U.S. support for its allies, particularly in light of growing collaboration between Russia and Washington’s other rivals, such as China, North Korea and Iran.

The omnipresence of drones

The firepower deployed during the exercise leaves little doubt about the destruction, high death toll and all the dramatic consequences, on both sides, that would surely result from a conflict with Russia.

At several times during the assault simulation in the presence of The Presssoldiers are entrusted with particularly dangerous tasks under enemy fire: walking between barbed wire and anti-tank obstacles to dismantle them, investing an enemy trench, towing a damaged tank in the middle of the battlefield.

Suddenly, a dot appears in the sky. “An enemy drone is approaching, it is trying to locate the headquarters of NATO forces,” says an officer.

A soldier walks forward and points a futuristic-looking black rifle toward the sky. The drone, struck by an invisible incapacitating ray, slowly descends to the ground, where a soldier picks it up.

Defensive weapons like this have been distributed to Canadian soldiers in Latvia in recent weeks. “It’s very simple to use. An electromagnetic rifle or a rifle that fires bullets is not much different. There is a trigger and we point at the target,” explains Captain Justin Ouellette, a soldier from Valcartier.

Drones are also omnipresent throughout the Canadian system in Latvia, especially for reconnaissance and observation purposes.

This is one of the main lessons of the war in Ukraine, underlines Elisabeth Gosselin-Malo, correspondent in Europe for the specialized publication Defense News.

“The trend is everything that is drone and anti-drone, we see it a lot in Ukraine, these are capabilities that we are researching and exploring,” she says.

Very large drones prove vulnerable in an environment like that of Ukraine, where they can be targeted, observes the expert.

Do your homework

Canada’s new chief of defense staff, General Jennie Carignan, said she is impressed by what the various allied countries bring to the table. “When we say that together we are stronger, it’s true. It allows us to consolidate a lot of military capabilities within the same formation,” she says.

According to her, Canada’s strength within the brigade is mainly based on “engineers, armor and infantry vehicles which are now extremely robust in terms of firepower.”

“They all have slightly different capacities and we can use them in their own way depending on the context and the terrain, which allows us to be even more effective,” she explains.

Moscow frequently denounces NATO exercises as provocations that risk generating escalation of the conflict. The Ādaži base, where the Canadians are deployed, is less than 300 km from the Russian border.

“I think that in terms of provocation, when we talk about Russia, when we invaded a neighboring country which is completely at peace…”, underlines the chief of staff.

The Minister of Defense of Latvia, Andris Sprūds, agrees. “We must do our homework and show our strength, exactly to deter Russia, so that we never have to mobilize our forces to defend every inch of NATO territory,” the minister says. Latvia was once part of the Soviet Union and has made no secret of its fear of one day suffering the same fate as Ukraine at the hands of its powerful Russian neighbor.

During a scrum with Canadian soldiers at the end of the exercise, the NATO Secretary General also spoke of sending a message.

“I hope that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin will also watch the videos of this exercise,” he said, all smiles.