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The drill, code-named Steadfast Jazz 2013, began on Saturday and will wrap up on November 9. It will be held in Poland, the former Soviet republic of Latvia, and in the Baltic Sea.

According to the Western military alliance, the exercise -- NATO’s largest since 2006 -- will be rehearsing how to oust an anonymous invading enemy from a fictitious region.

"The purpose of this exercise is to make sure that our rapid reaction force, the NATO Response Force, is ready to defend any ally, deploy anywhere and deal with any threat,” NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said.

Around 350 vehicles, including armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, engineering vehicles, trucks and all-wheel drive vehicles, 1,000 mechanized infantries, a chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) battalion, an airborne anti-tank company, around 11 surface vessels and one submarine as well as 46 fighter jets and 11 helicopters are participating in the war games.

Steadfast Jazz 2013 involves all NATO nations as well as the partner nations of Finland, Sweden and Ukraine.

NATO has stressed that the exercise is not aimed at Russia directly, and has invited Russian observers to the drill.

Last week, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu announced that his country would dispatch a delegation to Steadfast Jazz 2013 military exercise.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has long complained about NATO’s eastward expansion into Moscow’s traditional sphere of influence, particularly the former Soviet Baltic republics of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

In late July, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov censured what he termed as the “Cold War” spirit of the NATO exercise.

Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita has reported that parts of the large-scale NATO maneuvers would take place in areas that are just 30 seconds away from Russia’s borders by jet flight./HK