Defender 2020: US plans military exercise with 37,000 troops

37,000 soldiers will participate in the military exercise "Defender 2020" to transfer troops to Poland and the Baltic States next year. It is planned that the largest transfer of US soldiers to Europe in the past 25 years, it said Monday in a statement of the US armed forces in Europe. So 20,000 soldiers would be sent across the Atlantic.

The aim is to increase readiness within NATO and deter possible opponents, said the US military. Germany will become the logistics hub for the exercise conducted by the US armed forces, in which a total of 19 states will participate. Between April and May, the troops will be guided through Germany with the support of the Bundeswehr.

The Left Party had already criticized the planned exercise in the past week. "This exercise will lead to reactions on the Russian side, which will inevitably lead to further escalation," said defense politician Alexander Neu. "The de-escalation does not seem to exist in the vocabulary of NATO." The left called for "not to participate in the exercise in any way, nor to make German territory available for this saber-rattling."

Germany also took over the leadership of the Nato spearhead (VJTF) in January. The spearhead was founded in 2014 - a reaction to the Russian annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, which also led to a reassessment of the security situation in Germany.