The Cooperative Lancer/Longbow-2006 exercises, part of the NATO Partnership for Peace program, started on September 11 and will run through September 29.
An official from the Moldovan ministry said 150 vehicles, including 20 armored vehicles from the Moldovan army, are deployed at the platoon-level exercises to practice interoperability between units formed from servicemen from different countries.
Nine NATO member countries (Bulgaria, the U.K., Hungary, Greece, Canada, Lithuania, Poland, the U.S. and Turkey), and 12 partner states (Austria, Azerbaijan, Albania, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Ukraine, Croatia and Switzerland) are involved in the exercise.
Military experts from a joint peacekeeping contingent in the zone of the Transdnestr conflict, including Russian and Transdnestr peacekeepers are monitoring the maneuvers.
The self-proclaimed republic of Transdnestr, which is in Moldova, said September 11 that it regards NATO exercises in Moldova as an escalation of a military threat against it.
