 The northern coast's NATO drills in the Baltic Sea have taken a more realistic meaning this year in light of Russia's war in Ukraine. The exercise directors set on September 18 as Western service members and ships practice how to respond to a Russian assault in the region for the first time in the series of annual exercises. The two-week exercise, involving some 30 ships and more than 3,000 Western service members, kicked off on September 9. It sees troops from all NATO countries on the Baltic Sea, plus NATO applicant Sweden and non-Baltic allies the U.S., Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium and France, training side by side, practicing amphibious operations and strikes from sea to land. German Rear Admiral and exercise director Stefan Hays said the Russian presence in the Baltic Sea, including an intelligence-collecting vessel, frigates and an aircraft was normal and expected, but this year's NATO exercises have moved more to reality from artificial scenarios. The intelligence-collecting vessel has been present here all of the time, which is normal, as I said. We recognized some aircraft that had overflown our forces, we recognized some Russian frigates showing presence here in the area, but as I said, everything normal and everything as we expected. For many years we had a kind of artificial scenario and right now we are a bit more close to the realistic, meaning the geography and the partners and the the opponent, so it's more realistic than it was before. For Latvian Navy, now it's important to look after development of future capabilities, looking at development of coastal defense capability, we have started to do that, and of course we are looking at a Black Sea region where mining, demining, that becomes a reality, so all the time we have been working on a historical ordinance disposal. Now it's coming to the real minds and we see that this is actual threat also can become also in Baltic Sea if some similar conflict appears in this region, so we need to be prepared.