Sweden launched Aurora 23 on Monday, its largest military exercise in 30 times that aims to pretend an attack from a foreign power as it’s soon anticipated to join the NATO alliance.

In the coming weeks, the Swedish army, cortege , air force and home guard, helped by dogfaces from 13 countries, will exercise what they would do if Sweden were attacked by an unnamed foreign power.

The exercise runs from 17 April to 11 May and will affect cover large corridor of the country, with combat exercises taking place on the ground, in the air and at ocean, on training fields and mercenary grounds.

The decision to conduct the exercise was made back in 2015, but according to Brigadier General Stefan Andersson, two important changes have taken place since also.

“ One is that we’ve a war from the Russian side in Ukraine, at an uncomfortably close distance in our neighbourhood. The other is that we’re now on our way into NATO, which makes this exercise indeed more important, ” he told the Swedish media.

Sweden is anticipated to join NATO soon as it now only requires the blessings of the Turkish and Hungarian congresses. While the Turkish congress has so far constantly refused to carry a vote for Swedish accession due to the country’s turndown to extradite Kurdish opposition, Hungarian lawgivers argue that Sweden has been too critical of its mortal rights situation.

Andersson emphasised that one of the most important rudiments of the exercise is to see how well it works to admit foreign aid in the event of an outbreak of war.

As part of the exercise, about 700 US Marines and their outfit will be transported from Norway to test the effectiveness of troop transport. In Oskarshamn, where there’s a decommissioned nuclear power factory, 100 British dogfaces will secure the harborage and field so that Sweden can admit a motorised rifle legion of one thousand dogfaces from Finland.

The last time an exercise of this size took place was in 1993, when around 20,000 people shared in the exercise, known as Orkan( hurricane in Swedish).

The exercise will be seen and heard in numerous corridor of the country, substantially in Southern Skåne, and Småland regions, where utmost of the combat exercises on training fields take place. They will also be seen on the strategically located islet of Gotland in the Baltic Sea.