Latvia shows Spanish military vehicles in the Shield Strike exercise

NATO's Multinational Brigade in Latvia continues its exercises to keep its soldiers trained.

More Leopard 2 tanks in Latvia: after Spain and Canada, now arriving from Poland
The Spanish participation in a parade in Latvia with soldiers and armoured vehicles

The most recent of these exercises was Shield Strike, in which military contingents from allied countries participating in the Multinational Brigade, including Spain, trained alongside soldiers and vehicles from the 2nd Battalion of the Mechanized Infantry Brigade of the Latvian Army, based in Ādaži, where the NATO Multinational Brigade is also located, and which also has its own maneuvering field to carry out these exercises.

Spain has been participating in this deployment since 2017, within the framework of NATO's eFP (Enhanced Forward Presence) operation following Russia's illegal annexation of the Ukrainian region of Crimea. NATO's initial battalion-type unit in Latvia has increased its numbers following Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine and Moscow's growing threats against our allies in the Baltic Sea area.

This Thursday, the aforementioned Latvian Brigade published a series of photos on its Facebook page that include several of Spanish military vehicles, most of them belonging to the Brigade "Extremadura" XI of the Army, which recently relieved the Brigade "Aragón" I in this operation to support Latvia against the Russian threat. You can see the aforementioned photos of Spanish vehicles here (click on each image to see it enlarged).

A Leopard 2E main battle tank. In addition to Spain, two other countries of the NATO Multinational Brigade in Latvia are contributing Leopard 2 main battle tanks: Canada, with Leopard 2A4M CAN, and Poland, which recently deployed Leopard 2PL. Below we see a VAMTAC ST-5 equipped with a Spike anti-tank missile launcher. The vehicle is covered with a camouflage net.

In the following three photos we see an ASCOD Pizarro infantry fighting vehicle (ICV). In addition to contributing to this protection and deterrence mission, the presence of this Spanish vehicle in Latvia has ended up being beneficial for the Spanish industry, since this week Latvia has signed the purchase of 42 ASCOD vehicles, derived from the Spanish Pizarro, after the Latvian Army had the opportunity to get to know this Spanish ICV first-hand for eight years.

Finally, four photos of M-113 armoured tracked transports, a very old vehicle but still very useful. The model in the last three photos is an M-113 VCZ sapper combat vehicle. The Army has 60 M-113s of this variant, which are distinguished by being equipped with a pusher shovel on their front part and a winch on their left front part. In the second photo we see the 12.7 mm Browning M-2 heavy machine gun that these vehicles carry next to the commander's hatch.