Agenda.Ge. Georgia’s Minister of Defence Levan Izoria announced today that the large-scale Noble Partner 2017 exercises will start on July 30, with the involvement of five NATO member and three ally countries.

The drills, which focus on improving defence and attack skills, will involve more than 2,800 soldiers.

The soldiers come from US, UK, Germany, Slovenia, Turkey, Ukraine, Armenia and Georgia.

Georgia will be represented by one hundred infantry soldiers and a platoon.

The Noble Partner 2017 is a part of drills of the European Command in the Black Sea region, which is being held on the territory of seven countries.

Noble Partner 2017 will continue Saber Guardian in Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary and Sea Breeze in Ukraine.

The Noble Partner exercises will run in Georgia until August 13, on the Vaziani training ground.

For the first time German armoured personnel carrier- Boxer will be involved in the exercise.

American tanks Abrams, infantry vehicles -Bradley and Striker, as well as C-130 American military aircraft will also be included in the training.

Established in 2015, the Noble Partner exercise was initially founded to train service members from the Georgian Armed Forces and NATO member states for the NATO Response Force (NRF) unit and to improve the Georgian troops’ interoperability with NATO units.

Last year’s drills involved around 1,300 service members including 650 US, 500 Georgian and 150 UK personnel at the Vaziani training ground.