Ready for the next Cold War: Swedish and Finnish troops join US soldiers for huge NATO war games just days after Putin's chilling threat to Scandinavia comparing himself to Peter the Great

 Ready for the next Cold War: Swedish and Finnish troops join US soldiers for huge NATO war games just days after Putin's chilling threat to Scandinavia comparing himself to Peter the Great

• About 7,000 military personnel and 45 ships from 16 countries are taking part in the BALTOPS 22 exercises
• Sweden and Finland joined 14 NATO countries for the military exercises, on the Swedish island of Gotland
• The 14 participating NATO nations include the United Kingdom, United States, France, Germany, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Turkey
• The exercises - that run from June 5 to June 12 - came after Russian President Vladimir Putin paid tribute on Thursday to Tsar Peter the Great - drawing a parallel between what he portrayed as their twin historic quests
• Exercises come after Sweden and Finland applied to join the NATO defence alliance infuriating Russia

• Sweden and Finland joined 14 NATO countries for a series of huge Baltic Sea war games in recent days amid heightened tensions in the region, as the Nordic nations hope to join the Western alliance in response to Russia's on-going invasion of Ukraine.

  About 7,000 military personnel and 45 ships took part in the exercises that involved air drops and amphibious landings on Gotland - an island that is strategically located in the middle of the southern part of the Baltic Sea. 

  Gotland has seen foreign invasions throughout its history, the most recent one in 1808, when Russian forces briefly occupied it. The annual BALTOPS exercises saw troops practicing not just how to defend the island with a population of 58,000, but how to take it back from a foreign aggressor.

• FULL ARTICLE AT: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10908423/Swedish-Finnish-troops-join-soldiers-huge-NATO-war-games-Baltic-Sea.html