24.04.2018.
Distinguished Visitors Day on Exercise Viking 18
The Distinguished Visitors Day of the multinational computer-assisted exercise Viking 18 was attended by Minister of Defence Aleksandar Vulin, Chief of General Staff of the Serbian Armed Forces General Ljubiša Diković with members of the extended collegium, Head of the OSCE Mission to Serbia Ambassador Andrea Orizio and other guests, at Banjica 2 barracks in Belgrade, today.
It is the largest distributed command post exercise, with participation of 61 countries, arranged under the auspices of the Kingdom of Sweden, where the main site is located, and is conducted on six more distributed sites: in Serbia, Bulgaria, Ireland, Finland and, for the first time this year, in Brazil.
It is for the second time that Serbia hosts the exercise which gathered representatives of 85 organizations and more than 3,000 participants, and in our country, 108 members of the Ministry of Defence and the Serbian Armed Forces, 40 members of the foreign armed forces and 57 members of the police, governmental and non-governmental organizations are practicing.
Minister of Defence Aleksandar Vulin reminded that Viking 18 is one of the world’s largest exercises, with thousands of participants, and in our country it is conducted for the second time.
- The Serbian Armed Forces can be pleased to note that the level of training of our soldiers and officers, as well as the level of readiness of our armed forces to respond to every task and every question asked, is at the highest possible level. All our guests, and here are representatives of the armed forces of the United States, Sweden, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia, can confirm that cooperation with our armed forces is very useful and that representatives of other armed forces have something to learn from us especially since we have significant experience when it comes to crisis management and responding to humanitarian emergencies. We have proved this since the refugee crisis in the 1990s, as well as working with migrants during the migrant crisis in our region, when we did everything in the most humane and effective way - Minister Vulin emphasized.
He added that we can show it now, and that it is of great interest and importance for us “to prepare our boys and girls for participation in peacekeeping missions all over the world”.
- The Serbian Armed Forces is currently participating in nine international peace missions, five led by the United Nations and four led by the European Union. Also, this is yet another proof why the military neutrality policy of of our state is good, because, as you can see, we can practice with everyone and learn from everyone, but also to transfer our knowledge to anyone who wants to learn from us - Minister of Defence said.
Colonel Boško Zorić, Viking 18 exercise planning officer, pointed out that this is a very important activity that significantly contributes to improving the state of training of members of the Serbian Armed Forces.
- That is how we achieved our first goal in this exercise, which is to improve the ability of our officers to participate in headquarters and multinational commands. In the second place, the goal is to get trained, together with our colleagues from the Ministry of Interior, but also from governmental and non-governmental organizations, with whom we would work together in the area of operation, and in the third place, our goal is to improve, by working together and training, mutual trust between our armed forces and, therefore, between our countries.
Colonel Zorić emphasized that Serbian young officers and NCOs have further enhanced simulation software by their knowledge and capabilities.
- Today, the Serbian Armed Forces performs exercises that even much more developed armed forces than ours do not perform. I am very pleased with the behaviour of all members, I noticed exceptional knowledge, expertise and professionalism, and above all, a friendly relationship between the members of the armed forces of the partner countries at the exercise, the Viking 18 exercise planning officer said.
Dragan Radovanović, President of the Red Cross of Serbia, stressed that this organization, as part of the civil sector, is an assisting state authority and, as such, has close cooperation with the Ministry of Defence and the Serbian Armed Forces in various programmes and participates in a large number of exercises.
- In such exercises, the main task of the Red Cross is the protection of civilians in armed conflicts, the establishment of family ties, the search service and, in particular, the emphasis is put on the protection of children.
Distinguished guests visited the Viking 18 exercise and disposition of elements in this activity. The leaders of some segments informed them about the work of the Centre for management of the exercise and its tasks, and the guests were also shown a monitor with the so-called “joint operational image”, which is seen only by the key leadership of the exercise, showing the disposition of all units at a certain point, as well as the disposition of enemy forces, civil organizations, internally displaced persons and centres in the area of operations.
The guests were also presented the activities of civil organizations in the area of operations, their current tasks, and the engagement and coordination of activities with the military component in the area of operations.
The Viking 18 exercise takes place from 16 to 26 April 2018.
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