Nearly 300 troops on exercise at Lešť

A total of 271 service members are exercising at the Training Centre Lešť before deploying to Cyprus to join up with UNFICYP. The first of them are expected to rotate their fellow colleagues in September and December 2020, the rest of them will follow in March and July next year.

The aim of the training, running from 13 to 19 July 2020, for the SVK Armed Forces members is to hone their practical military skills that are necessary for executing peacekeeping tasks. These include the prescribed responses to different situations that may occur during their deployment – military and civilian patrolling, civil-military incidents, different types of evacuation, reporting procedures and radio communications.

Among those involved in the training are members of the SVK Army, the SVK Air Force, the Defence Staff and its subordinate military units and establishments. The training has been concurrently underway at several locations – across the training grounds of the Tent Area, Camp Slávia and TC Lešť.

The specialist training was preceded by the Joint UNFICYP Training Programme during which the trainees received basic theoretical knowledge of the Mission′s areas of operational responsibility and tasks in line with the UNFICYP mandate. As a follow-up to the specialist training, the National Pre-Deployment Readiness Evaluation process, built around the Final Control Exercise, and the Final Interviews are scheduled for 20-21 July 2020.

A total of 241 SVK service personnel are currently deployed to Cyprus. The mission of UNFICYP is to sustain the status quo in the buffer zone, enforce the ceasefire between the belligerent parties, contribute to restoring and enforcing law and order across the island, and deliver humanitarian tasks.