(Cincu) At the foot of the Carpathians, the Romanian military base of Cincu looks like an anthill. Installation of barracks or training maneuvers: French, Belgian or Dutch soldiers, deployed after the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the end of February, are busy.
Posted yesterday at 10:51 p.m.
In this country at the outpost of NATO, the war had an accelerating effect, between intensification of the missions of the Atlantic Alliance and modernization projects for the army.
From the beginning of March, a thousand Americans came to reinforce the troops in the locality of Mihail Kogalniceanu, on the shores of the strategic Black Sea, while others flocked to Cincu, in the center.
On this site that AFP was able to visit last week, 400 men are currently at work with the ambition of increasing the reception capacity to more than 1,000 by the end of the year.
“Ready to fight together”
A few months after their emergency deployment, they got their bearings and the mission was made permanent. Operation Aigle, placed under French command, aims to strengthen the defense of NATO’s eastern flank over time.
Under the supervision of Colonel Christophe Degand of the 8e RPIMA, a parachute regiment from Castres (south of France), several units are carrying out an assault exercise in an urban environment that morning.
“The objective is to train as often as possible to improve communication between the different nations and the operational mastery of foreign equipment,” he explains.
“We are showing that we are united and ready to fight together, this is our deterrence strategy” against Moscow, adds Colonel Ciprian Galica, Romanian chief of staff of a NATO division.
While the infantry units prepare for so-called “high intensity” warfare, the engineer troops are busy preparing the base.
It is a question of installing more than 200 containers arrived from Mali – from which France withdrew in August – to accommodate the future occupants.
Work is also being completed on a vehicle maintenance workshop and a depot that will house all types of ammunition needed for the mission.
“Electroshock”
This logistical and material effort by NATO is welcome in Romania which is striving, despite the economic difficulties of this country among the poorest in the European Union, to modernize its army.
For several years now, billions of dollars have been invested in the face of regional tensions caused by the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014.
And the Russian offensive of February 24 “acted like an electric shock, dramatically precipitating the strengthening of Romania’s military capabilities”, notes Sergiu Miscoiu, professor of political science at the University of Cluj-Napoca.
“She realized that she might need to defend herself and quickly, like the Ukrainians did,” he explains.
President Klaus Iohannis recently announced a significant increase in the defense budget, to 2.5 points of GDP – against 2 points previously.
In August alone, the army launched calls for tenders for more than one billion euros in order to renew its aging equipment.
The government has also just placed an order for 18 combat drones from the Turkish manufacturer Bayraktar, which have proven their effectiveness against Russian forces in Ukraine.
In June, he also validated the purchase of 32 used American F-16 fighters from Norway.
They will replace the MIG-21s dating from the Soviet era which constitute the backbone of the Romanian Air Force and will be stored in the hangar in the spring of 2023 after a series of incidents and accidents, including a fatal one on March 2.
Romanian ambitions go further: discussions with Israel were raised on Tuesday by Romanian Defense Minister Vasile Dincu, with a view to purchasing the “Iron Dome” missile shield.
Romania would then be the first European country to acquire this system.