Armed Forces
“Blue Brigade” Deployed To Lithuania
fot. Bundeswehr/Jörg Koch 
Image Credit: FLICKR - Allied Joint Force Command Brunssum/Miks Uzans/NATO. 
Fot. SatRevolution 
Fot. www.gazprom.ru
Soldiers coming from the elements of the Polish 12th Mechanized Brigade have been recently involved in a multinational Iron Wolf-16 exercise. The operation took place within the training ranges of Lithuania. Besides the soldiers hailing from Poland and Lithuania, five other NATO member states participated in the training organized beyond the North-Eastern border of Poland. Here we mean the following nations: Denmark, France, Luxembourg, Germany and the United States of America. The main goal of the operation was to integrate the multinational attack and defence tactics, with the latter ones applied in a fortified area.
The Polish detachment, consisting of 150 soldiers of the 1st Legion Battalion and 3rd Motorized Infantry Battalion, equipped with several vehicles, including the Rosomak APCs, has been deployed to Lithuania on 3rd June this year. The whole Polish component, which was destined to take part in the Iron Wolf-16 operation, was commanded by Cpt. Maciej Szyłkowski.
As we were informed by the spokesman for the “Blue Brigade”, Cpt. Janusz Blaszczak, before the soldiers have reached their destination – Pabrade range in Lithuania – they had to cover a distance almost 950 kilometres. After their arrival, the Polish soldiers were accommodated at a camp-site, which has been arranged for the forces involved in the exercise.
On 17th June 2016, after completing its training tasks, the element of the 1st Legion Battalion started its trip back home. Iron Wolf 16 exercise involved five thousand soldiers from six NATO member states: Denmark, France, Luxembourg, Germany and the United States of America, and obviously, Poland.