Multinational Exercise Adaptive Hussars 23 ends with success

The minister ordered the conduct of the military exercise with the aim of testing the defence capability of the Hungarian military, since in the age of dangers – when war, migration and the concomitant terrorism are threatening Europe – Hungary’s security comes first.

The nine-day multinational Exercise Adaptive Hussars 23 has involved troops from four NATO member states and “set the entire military system in motion”, pointed out Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky.

“We have managed to test the defence system of the country in five counties on 40 venues, with the movement of approximately 6000 personnel and 700 items of military equipment. The troops were present on the ground, on water and in the air, and the entire armed forces were practically working in a wartime mode all through the week”, said the Minister of Defence. “The objectives of the exercise were to get to know and to test how the Hungarian military can react to unpredictable situations”, he underlined.

Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky noted that for example, as part of the international exercise that was conducted by injecting unexpected incidents as well, fighter planes had to be relocated from Kecskemét to Sármellék, due to a simulated action.

“Here, the servicemembers were practicing to provide fuel supplies (refueling) as the key logistic task in the event of a potential terrorist threat”, he added.

He also noted that the NATO forces stationed in the area of the country had been successfully integrated into their defensive operations, and had successfully prepared for the reception of Alliance forces allocated to the defence of Hungary and for organizing defence in cooperation with them.

The minister said that the military leadership had succeeded in efficiently co-deploying active-duty and reserve capabilities, adding that at the same time, in his opinion the testing of defence capabilities with the involvement of 500-600 reservists has shown that in the future, the “call-up” of reservists should be improved and simplified. For this reason, the Ministry of Defence will initiate a dialogue with the employers as well, in the interest of making it easier for the reservists to participate in military exercises in the future.

Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky added that although the analysis of lessons learned during the exercise is still in progress, we can already state that Hungary’s defence system is developing and is able to fill its vital role in the dynamically changing security environment.

Press release of the Ministry of Defence