US, French troops in Romania hold NATO military drills

CAPU MIDIA, Romania (AP) — U.S. and French troops who are in Romania as part of a NATO battlegroup held a military exercise to test the 30-nation alliance’s eastern flank defenses, as Russia’s full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine nears its one-year anniversary. The joint combat drills at the Black Sea training range in Capu Midia, dubbed Eagle Royal 23, involved some 350 multinational battlegroup troops who will practice firing live ammunition from a U.S.-made HIMARS, a mobile, truck-mounted missile system. Romania’s defense ministry said that the goal of the drills is to test NATO’s “interoperability of artillery systems” in a fictitious collective defense scenario.