Defence Minister, Nicolae-Ionel Ciuca, and the Chief of Defence Staff, Lieutenant General Daniel Petrescu, participated on Tuesday, November 9th, at the Distinguished Visitors' Day of the Special Operations Forces Exercise JUNCTION STRIKE 2021, organized at Sangeorgiu de Mures Training Range.

The schedule consisted in an information visit at the Special Operations Forces Component Command where the capabilities of the component, an exhibition of specific equipment and a demonstrative exercise were presented.

This certification exercise of the special forces stands for the proof of our commitment in creating capabilities in agreement with the NATO commitments , at allied standards. The fact that 10 partners states participated in this exercise demonstrates that the special operations forces have become relevant in this complex security environment.

The capacities represented by Romania's special operations forces are not important only to our country but they are capacities that are made available to NATO. Today I had the opportunity to meet and talk to commanders of the special operations forces from other 10 allied states, who have been present here, commanders who were interested in taking part in this very complex exercise by which we demonstrated the interoperability level and supported the mutual trust, which is very important.

I learned from this exercise that is necessary to set the standards for the SOF joint capacities and also in different areas of activity. Together, we succeeded in presenting the main goals for building force capacities for special operations. Everything is connected with Romania's main objective: playing an important role in the region, taking into account all threats and challenges from the Black Sea region.

Today, we proved again our determination in making efforts in order to strengthen NATO's Eastern Flank. This is, in fact, the most important message we wished to deliver, stated the minister of national defence, Nicolae-Ionel Ciuca, at the end of the activity.

Also, the Chief of Defence Staff, Lieutenant General Daniel Petrescu, emphasized that the special operations force structures are an important instrument of the Romanian Armed Forces capable of rapid reaction at strategic level. These forces increase both their own action capacity and interoperability through joint training activities conducted with other similar allied structures.

Through the effort of the soldiers involved in exercise Junction Strike 21, the Romanian Armed forces certified two NATO capability targets: a SOF Maritime Group and the Special Operations Component Command. I congratulate the SOF Command for its entire planning, organization and training process as well as for the exemplary commitment in reaching its own goals which, in fact, are the Romanian Armed Forces'ones.

Commanders of the special operations forces from allied and partner states (Albania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, North Macedonia, Great Britain, Portugal, Poland, The Republic of Moldova and Hungary) participated together with the MoND leadership at the Distinguished Visitors' Day.


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Exercise JUNCTION STRIKE is conducted annually, in joint multinational context, with SOF structures of EU allied and partner states, with e view of exercising synchronization SOF multi-tasking operations and demonstrating the action capability at tactical and operative levels, based on a crisis scenario.

This year, JUNCTION STRIKE 2021 was conducted over 1st-12th November, in the Romanian Armed Forces training facilities, in the areas neighboring Reghin, Bradet, Miercurea Ciuc, Mihail Kogalniceanu and Sangeorgiu de Mures localities.

Over 800 Romanian soldiers with 100 technical pieces of air, ground and naval equipment together with 150 foreign soldiers from allied and partners countries (Georgia, Greece, Great Britain, The Republic of Moldova, Polonia, Portugal and the United States of America).

The main objective of Exercise JUST 21 was the certification of two NATO capability targets A SOF Maritime Group and the Special Operations Component Command pas well as the testing of the achieved training level of the command and execution personnel assigned in the special operations forces structures subordinated to the Special Operations Forces Command.

At the same time, the exercise aimed at developing interoperability among participating structures by planning and executing SOF joint operations and missions, harmonizing working procedures in the international environment with the end state of promoting regional security, especially in the Black Sea region.

The Press Office