In Poland, Nato military drills brace against the unspoken threat of Putin

Russian aggression along Europe’s eastern border has Nato ramping up training efforts in anticipation of all manner of warfare – from cyber to chemical. William Cook experiences Poland's biggest Nato operation first hand

A soldier kneels next to a tank as operations get underway (Photos Nato)

Smoke billows across the battlefield, obscuring the armoured cars ahead of us. A Polish soldier keels over, then another, and then another. Military hardware is no use here – this is a chemical attack. Army ambulances race through the acrid fog to evacuate the casualties. If you’d arrived here unawares, you’d never know this was just a drill – it all feels frighteningly real. Welcome to Drawsko Pomorskie, the biggest military training ground in Europe. And welcome to Anakonda 18, Poland’s biggest Nato exercise.

Anakonda 18 features 17,500 soldiers from 10 Nato members: 12,500 here in Poland, plus 5,000 more in parallel exercises in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. It’s no surprise that these military exercises are happening here. This is the site of Nato’s “Enhanced Forward Presence”: four combat-ready battlegroups, stationed in these four eastern European countries, supporting the defence forces of each of these countries with over 4,000 foreign troops. The multinational makeup of these battlegroups underlines the significance of Article 5 of Nato’s founding treaty, which states that an armed attack against one of its members constitutes an attack against them all.