Commander of Special Operations Forces: We are glad we've managed to organise Carpathian Eagle in pandemic

The drill that practically ended the two weeks of training for the approximately 200 soldiers from seven Balkan countries participating in the Carpathian Eagle drill, took place on Friday, in the Cincu training area, Brasov county, on which occasion there also took place the traditional Day of Distinguished Visitors.

"It was the two-week drill during which Special Operations Forces activities were carried out at the initiative of the chiefs of defence from 9 Balkan states. On this occasion, we also celebrate 12 years since the signing of this agreement, this regional cooperation initiative, and we are glad that we have managed to organize this drill in this context of the pandemic, which affects us all, and we appreciate the effort of the participating countries. We had six countries and a seven one that sent its representatives only today [Friday - editor's note]. The big absentees, who did not participate due to COVID-19 reasons, are Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina," the Commander of the Special Operations Forces, Brigadier General Tiberiu Serban, stated on Friday, at Cincu, the commander of the Special Operations Forces Command.

According to him, the goal of the "Carpathian Eagle 2020" drill was to strengthen cooperation and interoperability, for the participants to share from their own professional experiences, to strengthen ties between the participating countries, the Cincu range providing very good conditions for training both personally as well as collectively.

"A peculiarity of the drill were the multinational teams, which added to the complexity of the approaches and training. There was a language barrier, but this obstacle was overcome. (...) The participants managed to share the techniques, the procedures that they know," mentioned General Serban, who added that all the terrestrial actions were combined in a version of work integrated with the air means, this mode of action being specific for everything that means special operations.

Regarding Friday's exercise, the Commander of the Special Operations Forces said that his scenario involved "a combination of conventional and unconventional approaches of the opponent," the main effort of the mission being to capture a very important personality of the opponent, to eliminate this target of great value to balance things or to tile the balance into its own favour.

"The Special Operations troops, both for Romania and for the other countries, represent a resource of strategic importance and that is why we spare no effort to become better and better," pointed out General Tiberiu Serban.

More than 200 troops from Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, northern Macedonia and Turkey, in cooperation with structures of the Ministry of National Defence, participated with ground and air combat means, between September 14 and 26, in the Multinational Special Forces Exercise, Carpathian Eagle 2020 "Carpathian Eagle 2020", in the Cincu range.