ADHU 25: The most complex military operation is in progress in Hungary

While observing a phase of the exercise, the amphibious crossing across River Danube, General Gábor Böröndi said that this largest-scale defence exercise – which sets the most personnel and items of military equipment in motion – involves more than 200 items of equipment and 22 000 personnel, and noted that 7068 soldiers were on the move as he was speaking.

Operating in an international force with Croatian support, the Hungarian troops have carried out their tasks with high-level professionalism – said the Chief of Defence, adding that “we can be proud of the Hungarian troops, the Hungarian people should be proud of the Hungarian Defence Forces”.

Speaking about Exercise Adaptive Hussars 2025, he said that these joint maneuvers involve all services across the whole spectrum of the Hungarian Defence Forces, which are conducting the phases together within a whole-of-government framework, in cooperation with organizations and experts of the civil public administration and defence administration in the interest of Hungary’s defence.

As he said, the six-week series of exercises – taking place in NATO forces, involving NATO troops, and setting the whole Hungarian armed forces in motion – is a large-scale one with a budget of several billion HUF. Besides a Croatian military police platoon, the operation also involved an Italian infantry company reinforced from Slovakia, as well as a Turkish and an American company that are expected to arrive.

Answering a question from the press, General Gábor Böröndi recalled that in 2016, the government of Hungary had announced the Zrínyi 2026 program, within the framework of which the transformation of the Hungarian Defence Forces is in progress, and, as he said, their renewal already has some spectacular results.

He said that “we have our Gripen fleet, and here we have Europe’s state-of-the-art helicopter fleet. The cutting-edge Lynx infantry fighting vehicles are being produced in Zalaegerszeg, and the Leopard A7+ is the most modern main battle tank currently available in Europe.” He underlined that the strength of the Hungarian Defence Forces, however, comes from the soldiers’ equipment, motivation and training level.

The amphibious crossing across River Danube – one of the phases of the exercise that had started on 1 September – was carried out between Fajsz and Dombori by the HDF 14th Engineer Regiment together with the HDF 30th Mechanized Infantry Brigade and the NATO Forward Land Force Battle Group.

During the exercise, an imitated drone attack preceding the wet gap crossing was repelled by a soldier of the HDF 2nd ISR Regiment equipped with anti-drone gun. Then, the participants took care of the recovery of a damaged vehicle and provided medical care to those travelling in it.

During the amphibious crossing, combat vehicles placed on ferry elements were transported, whereas their crews and the amphibious personnel were carried across the river in PTS tracked amphibious transport.

The construction and operation of the amphibious crossing site demonstrating the capability of the engineer regiment also received air support from the HDF 86th Helicopter Wing, in addition to warship and ISR support.