Exercise Aurora is a Swedish national exercise with international participants, including NATO members. The exercise is an important opportunity working towards collective security in the region which sees participants practicing against high intensity scenario replicating potential threats. The exercise will include fighter, transport and other support aircraft from Sweden, Finland, Poland, Portugal, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Operating from bases in Sweden and around the Baltic Sea area missions flown throughout the exercise will train air defence, including both offensive and defensive air operations, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance operations as well as close air support and strike missions.
“Aurora 23 enhances Sweden’s capacity to respond to an armed attack and the Swedish Air Force will conduct dispersed operations, using wartime air bases and civilian airports, to counter air to ground attacks,” said Colonel Anna Siverstig, Commander of the Swedish Air Warfare Centre and exercise director for the Swedish Air Force and Air Defense. “Partner aircraft are integrated with the Swedish command structure to conduct multinational air defense operations. Our Air Force interoperability with NATO is already well established, and this exercise will improve it further,” she added.
The participants will work on tactics, techniques and procedures designed to defeat a complex set of potential real-world challenges in a contested air domain. Integration at this level fine tunes Allied and Partner cooperation as Sweden works towards its NATO membership.
The Swedish Air Force already greatly enhances security and stability in Europe and cooperates closely with the Alliance in exercises and training events in the Baltic Sea Region and High North. Large scale training activities like these are performed regularly across the Euro-Atlantic Area improving the overall cohesion of the Alliance and ensuring NATO can cooperate closely with important Partners.
