Special operations soldiers from Spain in an exercise in Batumi, Georgia

@DefAviation ES 3·13·2024 · 20:31 0

Exercise Steadfast Defender 2024, NATO's largest maneuvers since the Cold War, also includes a special operations phase.

The Spanish Armed Forces are working on a new camouflage for their uniforms
Joint training of special operations units from Spain and Portugal

This phase is called Trojan Footprint 24 and its scenarios are in several allied countries and in a country aspiring to be a member of NATO: Georgia. Special operations soldiers from Spain have traveled to that country to participate in this exercise, although neither the Ministry of Defense, the Defense Staff nor the Spanish Armed Forces have published anything about it.

Today, the Efe agency has published the presence of Spanish soldiers there based on information provided by the Georgian Ministry of Defense. This information indicates that the Spanish soldiers belong to the "Special Operations Group", the name given to three of the units dependent on the Special Operations Command (MOE) of the Spanish Army.

Also today, the multimedia portal DVIDShub.net of the US Armed Forces has published two series of photos from this exercise that show Spanish special operations soldiers during this exercise in Georgia, without specifying which units they belong. The first series was taken on March 6 and the second shows images of this Tuesday.

In images posted by DVIDShub.net, the patches of participating soldiers have been blurred. As almost everyone is wearing Multicam uniforms, it is difficult to know which country each one belongs to. However, the American portal provides some information about the images. The photos you see here are those that DVIDShub.net indicates show Spanish soldiers along with operators from the Georgia Special Operations Forces and Marine Raiders from the US Marine Corps Special Operations Command (MARSOC).

The first series of photos published by DVIDShub.net about this exercise shows building assault, demolition and marksmanship practice near Batumi, Georgia's second largest city, located on the shores of the Black Sea.

According to information published by the Georgian Ministry of Defense, special operators from Georgia, Spain, the United States, the United Kingdom, Poland and Romania have participated in this exercise, although in the two series of photos from Batumi British, Polish and Romanian soldiers do not appear.

A significant photo of those published by DVIDShub.net is the one we can see below: a Spanish operator with a dry pixelated Spanish camouflage garment.

Below these lines we can see the Cadet training ship of the Batumi State Maritime Academy, dependent on the Ministry of Economy of Georgia. It was the scene of the visit, board, search and seizure (VBSS) exercise shown in the second set of photos on DVIDShub.net. The exercise also took place in Batumi. As a curiosity, the Georgian Defense Forces do not include any naval forces. It was abolished in 2009 and incorporated into the Coast Guard of that country.

During this exercise, tactical combat casualty care (TCCC) practices were also carried out, as shown in the following photo.

The operators arrived at the Cadet training ship aboard a rigid rigid boat (RHIB). Special operators from Georgia and Spain were on this boat.

In the next photo we see a Georgian operator (left, in gray) next to a Spanish operator, the latter wearing a uniform and equipment with Multicam camouflage.

In the next photo we see a Georgian operator (left, in gray) next to a Spanish operator, the latter wearing a uniform and equipment with Multicam camouflage.

Finally, four operators from Georgia and Spain evacuating a simulated casualty during the VBSS exercise on the Cadet ship.

+ UPDATED 3/18/2024 9:42 p.m.: Mystery solved: the Spanish soldiers were operators of the Special Naval Warfare Force (FGNE).