Canada deploying four CF-18 jets to Romania for a month-long training exercises, reported Tom Antonov.

Less than three weeks after announcing with considerable fanfare the withdrawal of Canada’s CF-18 fighter jets from the Mideast war in Syria and Iraq, the Liberal government revealed February 25 that four of these aircraft will deploy directly to Romania for joint exercises with the NATO member’s air force.

One hundred Canadian military personnel will take part in the month-long training exercises from a Romanian air force base in Constanta. The deployment involves the Royal Canadian Air Forces’ 2 Wing, an air expeditionary force tasked with being ready for rapid deployment in Canada or anywhere around the world.

While not formally being conducted through NATO, exercise “Resilient Resolve” is nonetheless an important part of the alliance’s military build-up throughout Eastern Europe aimed at encircling and isolating Russia. Romania is one of the six Eastern European countries where NATO agreed to establish forward command bases in the wake of the Ukraine crisis in 2014—bases due to become operational in the early part of this year.