Joint military drills of Moldovan, Romanian, U.K., and U.S. soldiers will take place on March 27-April 7, Moldova’s Ministry of Defense reported.
The exercises aim to help the personnel exchange experience and increase the level of interoperability between participating contingents, according to the report.
Under the Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET-2023), the soldiers of the four countries will perform advanced combat shooting, parachute jumps, and other training tasks, the ministry wrote.
Moldovan officials warned citizens they might see military vehicles moving from the bases to the training centers where the maneuvers would occur and asked them “not to speculate on the exercise.”
JCET-2023 is planned. Moldovan special forces have been participating in the exercise since 2009, reads the ministry’s Facebook post.
Moldovan President Maia Sandu said on Feb. 13 that Russia was planning a coup d'état in Moldova, involving attacks on government buildings and hostage-taking, echoing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s earlier claims.
According to a leaked document obtained by an international group of media outlets, including the Kyiv Independent, Russia is planning to gain control over Moldova by 2030.
Russian propagandists have claimed that Ukraine, Moldova, or NATO are preparing an attack on Transnistria. There is speculation that this is a facade for a Russian plan to invade or destabilize Moldova.
The Kyiv Independent news desk
