Georgian troops and their American and Eastern European allies are participating in annual military drills Agile Spirit 2017 that has taken start today in Georgia.

The multinational exercise involves a wide range of offensive and defensive trainings and will be one of the highlights of the annual calendar of events bringing together military personnel from Georgia and abroad.

Approximately 500 U.S. military personnel have arrived in the Republic of Georgia to take part in Exercise Agile Spirit 17. This is the seventh iteration of the annually-scheduled multilateral exercise designed to enhance U.S., Georgian and regional partner interoperability and strengthen understanding of each nation’s tactics, techniques and procedures.

Agile Spirit 17 will include both a multinational brigade-level command post exercise and a multinational battalion-level combined arms live-fire field training exercise. Various units from the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Army will participate in the exercise along with approximately 1,000 service members from the Georgian, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bulgarian, Latvian, Romanian, and Ukrainian armed forces. The exercise is scheduled to end on or about Sept. 15, 2017.