Ukraine-British joint military exercise Cossack Mace 2021 concludes today
Joint Ukraine-British military exercise Cossack Mace concludes today after two weeks of training in Ukraine’s southern Mykolaiv oblast.
Cossack Mace, a new multi-lateral exercise, saw over 2000 military personnel and 300 pieces of military equipment from Ukraine, Great Britain, the US, Canada and Sweden attend the exercises. The exercises focused on rehearsing a joint response to a potential aggressor state—likely Russia—seizing and controlling territory within Ukrainian borders. Ukraine’s primary goal with these exercises is to integrate its State Border Guard Service into multi-national joint operations.
In a response to a Russian buildup of troops earlier this year, Ukraine will host 7 different multilateral military exercises this year alone. Russian President Valdimir Putin claims that the military exercises raise tensions in the region, confirming NATO’s intended effect of deterring Russian aggression.
Short-term, expect Russia to continue to decry Ukraine’s exercises as tension enflaming, but also expect Russia to make unilateral moves to flex its military might. Russia may use the recent unveiling of a Russian for-export fifth generation Checkmate fighter as a way to build international partnerships to push back on NATO activity. NATO will likely continue to conduct large-scale multilateral military exercises as a deterrent to Moscow aggression.
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