OTTAWA -- Canadian soldiers and their NATO allies in Latvia will help to defend against a simulated invasion of the eastern European nation starting Saturday, even as real tensions flare anew between Moscow and the West.
Billed as Latvia's largest wargame since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the Namejs 2018 exercise is an attempt to mimic an attack by a country like Russia and test how Latvian and NATO forces respond.
The scenario involves Latvian authorities dealing with enemy cyberattacks and efforts to stir up the local population with misinformation before an all-out assault, at which point the Canadians and their allies will be called upon to help.
Canada has 450 soldiers leading a nine-country NATO battle group in Latvia, one of four such forces deployed to Eastern Europe in recent years following Russia's annexation of Crimea and support separatist rebels in Ukraine.
While the exercise officially started on Monday, the Canadian-led battle group won't kick into action until Saturday, at which point it will spend the next week defending an airfield while launching attacks and counterattacks on the invading force.
"There is initially in our scenario some instability, there are some forces using infowars, cyber and these things to create more instability inside the country before the push of the conventional forces," said Lt.-Col. Steve MacBeth, the battle group's Canadian commander.
"And it's when the push of the conventional forces occurs that (the battle group) and the mechanized brigade get involved."
The exercise will involve about 10,000 people, including Latvian police, businesses, volunteers as well as local and international military personnel, in dozens of cities and communities across the country.
While the tactics employed by the invading country reflect what many believe would happen during a Russian invasion, Latvian, Canadian and NATO officials have been careful not to identify Russia as the fictional enemy.
"It is not against a specific country," said Latvian Ambassador to Canada Karlis Eihenbaums. "It's more to conclude a four-year training cycle and show our general population our ability to act independently, if necessary, and together with our allies."
But Eihenbaums also said Latvian officials did not consider such a massive military exercise necessary until Russia rattled its neighbours with its annexation of Crimea in 2014 and support for rebels in Ukraine's Donbass region.
"Crimea was a pure aggression act by a neighbouring country to another neighbour and that was a grabbing of the lands," the ambassador said. "How can you feel safe afterwards?"
Relations between Moscow and the West have soured since Crimea, but Namejs 2018, which is named after one Latvia's most famous medieval leaders, has nonetheless coincided with a new round of verbal sparring between Russian President Vladimir Putin and NATO.
During a visit to Finland on Wednesday, Putin accused the military alliance of encroaching upon Russia's borders with troops and equipment and that his country needed to respond in kind by increasing its own forces.
NATO officials fired back that it was Russia who was being aggressive and that the decision to deploy the four battle groups into eastern Europe was purely defensive.
The exchange came the same day as Britain said two of its fighter jets were scrambled from Romania to intercept a suspected Russian airplane approaching NATO airspace.
The U.S., meanwhile, says new sanctions on Moscow in relation to the March poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Julia in the U.K. will take effect on Monday.
And U.S. President Donald Trump's national security adviser, John Bolton, affirmed during a visit to Ukraine on Friday that American sanctions on Russia would remain in force "until the required change in Russian behaviour."
While the Latvian military and the Canadian-led battle group will attempt to defend the country from invasion, a prominent study by the Rand Corp. think tank in 2016 found that a real Russian attack would sweep through the Baltics in less than three days.
MacBeth doesn't necessarily buy that narrative: "There's an advantage to being the home team," he said, noting Latvia's natural features make it easier to defend against a large invader.
"If you look at Latvia's natural structures, there are thin roads, heavy forests and bad swamps," he said. "It pushes everyone into a certain zone where a small force can fight a larger force and be very successful."
