Defense Post
December 12, 2022

French Tanks Join NATO Defensive Line in Romania

Freshly arrived at Cincu army training camp, 120mm cannons loaded on French tanks are already booming out across the muddy firing range as NATO bolsters its forces in Romania, a member country bordering Ukraine.

“The Ukrainian crisis shows that what’s going on in the east can threaten all of Europe. We’re showing that NATO is present, united and ready for anything,” says Alexandre de Feligonde, a French colonel leading a battalion of troops from different countries in central Romania.

As lead nation for the alliance’s “Enhanced Forward Presence” deployment in Romania, France has just sent around 20 armored personnel carriers and 13 Leclerc tanks.

The menacing 56-tonne battle tanks can fire six shells a minute at ranges of up to 6,000 meters (3.7 miles) — even on the move.

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Alliance members’ return to preparations for such a war, after years fighting totally different conflicts in the Middle East and Africa….

French tanks were previously deployed to Estonia and Lithuania, NATO members bordering Russia….

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Romania currently hosts around 5,000 foreign troops, the largest contingent anywhere in NATO’s southeastern region.

Some are based at the Black Sea airfield of Constanta, around 400 kilometers (250 miles) as the crow flies from the Crimean Peninsula….

One corner of the base bristles with light armored vehicles, and Chinook and Apache helicopters belonging to a brigade of the US 101st Airborne Division.

Further north, just 100 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, French troops arrived earlier this year to beef up air defenses.

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If Russia were to attack Romania, “we could open fire within seconds” of a NATO decision backed by Bucharest, Christophe says.

“Nato is monitoring anything that happens in the Black Sea,” says Italian officer Michele Morelli, whose aircraft carry out “air policing” for Romania from the Constanta base.

The colonel’s four Eurofighter planes can be scrambled within 15 minutes.