Cold Response is Norway's major exercise in winter combat. It is conducted every two years in March in a harsh climate.

Sweden participates with a hitherto unknown number of soldiers.

The plan was for this year's edition, Cold Response 2020, to be the largest to date with about 19,000 military personnel.

Of these, 10,500 would be American soldiers. But now, several thousand US Navy soldiers are being sent to other missions.

- They have withdrawn about 3,000 soldiers from the exercise. But there will continue to be American soldiers participating in the exercise, says Lieutenant Colonel Per-Thomas Bøe, spokesman for the Norwegian Armed Forces, to SVT News.

Norwegian NRK and Barents Observer as well as the Pentagon magazine Stars and Stripes have reported on the US cut.

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The change is considered a possible trend breach as the exercise has grown gradually in recent years due to a deteriorating relationship between Russia and Western Europe.

US Marines in Setermoen, Norway, November 4, 2019. Photo: US Marines, Nathaniel Hamilton

The spokesman for the United States Navy Corps in Europe, Adrian Rankine-Galloway, tells Stripes that about 7,500 US soldiers are participating in the exercise. But that cannot be confirmed by the Norwegian Armed Forces for SVT on Tuesday.

During the Cold War, the United States Navy launched advance storage of military equipment in storage rooms in Norway. Combat vehicles, armor, ammunition and other important equipment can be deployed in a military conflict in Scandinavia.