- More than 250 Czech soldiers are moving to Slovakia for the Strong Lineage exercise.
- Almost three thousand NATO soldiers with four hundred pieces of equipment are participating in the exercise.
- During Strong Lineage 2026, NATO is testing the rapid replenishment and deployment of troops.
More than 250 Czech soldiers from the 42nd mechanized battalion in Tábor began gradually moving to Slovakia on Tuesday morning. They will take part in the Strong Lineage 2026 exercise, during which the North Atlantic Alliance tests the ability of the multinational brigade group operating in the Slovak Republic (MN BDE SVK) to quickly replenish units and deploy them in a combat scenario in the event of an escalation of the crisis. TASR reporter reports from Tábor in South Bohemia.
According to the commander of the unit in Tábor, Jan Slepánek, the task of the Czech troops is to move to Slovakia, to come under the command of leading Spaniards there and to coordinate operational procedures. “We will come there, we will contact the Spanish brigade, as commanders we will submit to the subordination of the unit, we will coordinate at the level of the staff plus the units. And since we are there for almost three weeks, we will do some bonding training, we have planned tactical training, shootings and similar training,” explained the commander of the unit.
A total of almost three thousand NATO soldiers with more than 400 pieces of military equipment will complete the exercise. About 130 soldiers who have been in Slovakia for several months, and more than 250 soldiers who are on standby in the Czech Republic, will participate for the Czech army. With support units, there will be a total of approximately 450 soldiers from the Czech Republic.
Although the activation of emergency units was also checked last year during this exercise, less than a hundred of them went to Slovakia at that time. The Czech army noted that this year is the first time that it will physically send almost the entire emergency unit to the location.
Those soldiers who are on alert must prepare for deployment and leave for the designated location within a few days of activation. The goal of the exercise is to test whether NATO can quickly react to a crisis in Central and Eastern Europe. The main purpose is to verify a strategic move over hundreds of kilometers across Europe. Czech soldiers are taking Pandur armored personnel carriers loaded with ammunition, Tatra 815 and Tatra 810 support vehicles and other equipment to Slovakia.
“In order not to cause a complete traffic collapse in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, because it involves approximately 140 vehicles, we divided the transfer into three days. We go in ten streams, with four streams going on the first day, which are about two hours apart in time, to split it up. On the following days, Pandura goes, there are three currents, and on the last day, the last three currents go,” explained Slepánek.
He pointed out that moving to such a distance is not common for the Czech army, by default its soldiers drive up to 200 kilometers, now it will be 750. Since it will take them two days, they will have a break in Slovakia, where they will sleep and refuel.
As the spokesman of the Slovak Armed Forces, Štefan Zemanovič, informed on Monday, the exercise will take place in the Lešť and Kamenica nad Cirochou training areas. Czech soldiers from Tábor are headed for Kamenice.
According to Slepánek, whether they have mastered the exercise will only be revealed if they return to Tábor without an accident or other complications. He added that they are already testing whether they have planned and agreed everything correctly. According to him, the planning itself took three months. During the transfer, there should not be any complications in transport, and on the spot, the point is to coordinate procedures with other units. When they succeed in all this, they will consider the exercise a success.
