“For the first time this year, Trojan Footprint – the premier annual special operations forces exercise in Europe, in conjunction with which Black Swan is also to be held – will be conducted from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea to cover NATO’s entire eastern flank, says Honvedelem.hu. This will be a quite pronounced change for us, too”, pointed out Major General Tamás Sándor, Inspector for Special Operations of the Hungarian Defence Forces Command. This also means that several elements corresponding to the Szolnok-based Regional Special Operations Component Command (R-SOCC) will be operating in parallel during the exercise.

“Basically, during the exercise, we will focus our activities on two areas in Hungary.” Having the component command in Szolnok, American, Austrian and Romanian SF task groups will be training under the command of a Hungarian Special Operations Task Group (SOTG), and we will also set up a combat infantry capability in Újdörögd with the help of the Polish troops joining us”, added the general.

Another change is that for the first time this year, two Eurofighter Typhoon FGR.4 multi-role combat aircraft will arrive in Hungary from the British Royal Air Force (RAF) for the duration of the exercise; these aircraft will fly close air support (CAS) missions for the SOF units.

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“Several participants are going to arrive from Hungary, too: besides the already »usual« capabilities that have been an integral part of the exercises since the beginnings – such as psychological operations, civil-military cooperation and cyberspace operations – this year the nominated personnel of the Counter-Terrorism Centre (CTC) will also participate in Black Swan. This also helps us to construct the exercise in compliance with the principles of national defence that involves whole-of-government tasks and increasingly in line with real-life circumstances, by involving partner organs. This year’s exercise will be dedicated to analyzing and evaluating the system itself. This includes, for example, questions like how information sharing works, how tasks identified as non-military ones are assigned to the CTC, how operational support can be managed. A lot of minor details emerge, and now we would like to test our solutions to them”,

listed the general, adding that naturally, the additional tasks entail extra workload: in comparison with 2021, this year’s Black Swan brings a pronounced increase of the tasks. This, however, is part of a process which, once completed, will enable the participants to reach the level required by NATO for going on a yearlong stand-by service in 2025.

“We expect that the closer we approach this date, the more numerous our tasks will be; deadlines will continue to shorten and the pressure on the training audience and the exercise staff will be building up”, pointed out the major general.

In 2022, we will be assigned the designated tasks of assembling an SOF air capability and integrating it into an air component, to be established under Hungarian command as well, underlined the general. At the end of this process, which has taken years of work, this year a SOF air component will be operating during Black Swan, based on our already acquired capabilities, and with the involvement of aircraft and aircrews of the HDF 86th Szolnok Helicopter Base. This, again, is a major leading role even in NATO’s present structure, and at once an important step towards the capabilities of our 2025 commitment.