TIRANA, May 27/ATA/ For two consecutive days, the Navy conducted the GRUPEX-22 exercise on the country’s coast.
Minister of Defense Niko Peleshi attended beginning of this exercise.
He considered the exercise important for increasing the standards of the Armed Forces.
During his speech, Minister Peleshi spoke about an ambitious plan that the Ministry of Defense and the government have for Cyber Security.
“For the Navy, we also have ambitions and plans as we shared with the commander to increase our fleet in the medium term and to increase our maintenance capacity. We are in the process of identifying the best ways we can so that to have a better response to all maintenance needs, but also, as I said, construction, purchasing other vessels as we have them in our capacity objectives” said the minister of defense.
Peleshi stressed that large investments are foreseen in the field of infrastructure and these are being discussed and planned with the government program as part of major projects for Albania.
The minister of defense also highlighted the experience that the Armed Forces of Albania received exactly one year ago from the largest exercise “Defender 2021”.
It is worth remembering that one year ago, in the entire territory of Albania, there was held the “Defender-21” exercise, an important component of it was at sea. And I believe that we have learned lessons and got promoted to a degree that we have never had the chance before. Thus, we are now even more ready to become a host country, not only on land, but also in the air, and at sea for the next “Defender 2023 “and beyond”, stressed Peleshi.
While the Commander of the Navy, Rear Admiral, Adnand Agastra explained the goals of this exercise, which also have to do with concrete service to the community.
“After this exercise, the ships will be sending throughout the Albanian coast; from Shengjin to Saranda, in all open ports, but also the bases of the Navy in order to respond to the situations of the season due to the increase in the flow of tourists, even the illegal use of the sea. The ships will be in the region in time to respond to all situations,” said Agastra.
The purpose of this exercise was to evaluate and certify groups of patrol vessels as enforcement units, to test the organizational and command skills of group commanders, to plan the Naval Staff as well as to carry out firing with armament of ships.
In the Grupex-22 exercise took part 11 Navy ships and 3 ARCH ANGEL class ships. The drill and the coastal shootings were conducted in accordance with the training documents as well as those of NATO-s./a.a/p.s./
