8 May (BNS)

Visiting the Spring Storm exercise on Tuesday, Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said that such exercises increase Estonia's security. He said it was thanks to the exercise that the Estonian Defence Forces develop primary independent defence capacity. The head of government said it could clearly be seen how consistent contribution into defence has increased our national defence capacity, a press officer for the government told BNS.

Present and future reserve units are taking part in the exercise, which shows Estonia's capacity of increasing capability of the Defence Forces based on the reserve. The major Spring Storm exercise started last Thursday and it will last until 19 May.

There will be more than 4 000 professional soldiers, conscripts, members of Kaitseliit, reservists, and officials taking part in this year's Spring Storm. The main focus of the exercise is on the Northeast defence area units. The headquarters of the defence area and its war-time units, including the infantry battalion, will take part in the exercise and its soldiers will go into the reserve after Spring Storm.