British paratroopers carrying out NATO drills were stopped and asked to show their passports as they parachuted onto a Swedish island this week.
Soldiers were carrying out exercises in Sweden as part of wider Swift Response 25 NATO drills aimed at preparing for the possibility of global conflict.
Drills including seizing a ‘Tactical Landing Zone’ from Swedish defenders, landing planes and parachuting onto the strategic Baltic island of Gotland.
Dozens of troops from the British Parachute Regiment were seen dropping from a Royal Air Force Airbus A400M on Tuesday.
But as they landed, it was straight to Swedish passport control, as Britain is outside of the Schengen Area.
Lieutenant Colonel Chris Hitchins told local outlet Expressen: ‘So I’m used to border control now. I did it in France last year, as well.’
‘Sometimes you have a bit of a mental pause, you go through those motions and then I’ll put my helmet back on and I’ll go into the trees and we’ll be back in a tactical scenario.’
British soldiers were met by officials and asked to produce passports after landing in Normandy for the 80th anniversary of D-Day last summer – provoking sharp rebuke from British politicians.
British troops jumped from a RAF A400M over Gotland, Sweden on Tuesday
But shortly after landing they had to take a detour via passport control before continuing drills
Troops pictured at a Border Control van to check passports during Swift Response 25 drills
British troops were made to present passports after landing in France last summer, too
Some 320 British, Belgian and US paratroopers took part in the jump, descending into a historic D-Day drop zone to recreate the events of 1944.
But only the 250 British paras were required to show passports as the US soldiers jumped from within France and Belgium is part of the European Union.
The 250 British paratroopers took off from RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, before jumping into the drop zone near Sannerville to commemorate the airborne invasion 80 years ago.
Former cabinet minister David Jones told MailOnline at the time that France only had control of its own borders because of the arrival of similar British troops 80 years ago.
‘They risked their lives to make France safe for bureaucracy,’ he quipped.
Brigadier Mark Berry, commander of 16 Air Assault Brigade, told the Sun: ‘It is something we haven’t experienced before.
‘But given the Royal welcome we have had from every other feature, it seems like a very small price to pay for coming to France.’
The British paras were cheered by hundreds of spectators who gathered at the drop zone around five miles from the sea.
British soldiers will have to present passports when landing in Europe.
FILE PHOTO: A Swedish JAS 39 Gripen E fighter jet flies over Sweden’s Gotland island in the Baltic Sea, May 11, 2022
Some 100 paratroopers were involved in the Swift Defense 25 drills on Tuesday
Some 100 paratroopers were involved in the Swift Defense 25 drills on Tuesday.
Speaking after the exercises, one soldier told Expressen: ‘It was a good, successful jump. So now we’re going to make our way to the rally point.’
Swift Defense 25 is a U.S.-led exercise taking place between May 11 and May 31, 2025.
NATO allies are ‘conducting near-simultaneous airborne and mobility aircraft operations, and multinational training across the High North and Baltic region to enhance collective defence readiness’.
Soldiers have practiced ‘airbourne insertions’ in Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden, and carried out live fire drills, medical support operations and artillery training, supported by Allied mobility aircraft.
Swift Response 25 is the opening phase of the broader U.S.-led DEFENDER 25 exercise, designed to reinforce NATO’s deterrence posture and demonstrate rapid deployment capability, NATO says.
‘This is about global deterrence,’ said General Christopher Donahue, Commanding General of U.S. Army Europe and Africa.
‘Everything we demonstrate with our Allies and partners, we can replicate globally. DEFENDER gives us critical repetitions at scale for theatre logistics and warfighting.’
NATO says the coordinated jumps are ‘made possible through the seamless integration of strategic and tactical airlift platforms’ including the British A400M seen in MailOnline video, and the American C-17 Globemaster III.
Some 25,000 personnel from 29 Allied nations will take part in Swift Response 25, as part of DEFENDER 25.
‘It validated NATO’s ability to coordinate complex operations across multiple domains and geographies, reinforcing the Alliance’s collective defence posture,’ a statement said.
Sweden announced last year it would discuss with NATO leaders plans to ramp up the militarisation of the island of Gotland, deemed the most strategic location in the Baltic Sea.
Described by analysts and commentators as a ‘giant aircraft carrier’, Stockholm-administered Gotland lies just 120 miles off the coast of NATO’s Baltic triad of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, but also just 230 miles north of the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
Its prime location offers huge advantages in the deployment and control of air and sea traffic in the Baltic Sea, and has been referenced regularly by military analysts and commentators in Russian media as a highly desirable target.
British paratroopers were met by French customs officials as they landed in Normandy for the 80th anniversary of D-Day
Five years ago 225 D-Day veterans travelled to Normandy for commemorations, this year there were just 23
Sweden maintained a military presence on Gotland during the Cold War and the island at its peak housed up to 25,000 troops, but in 2005 it was almost completely demilitarised.
Now, with Sweden’s accession to NATO complete, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said the prospect of re-arming Gotland was ‘one obvious thing to be discussed with our new NATO allies’ as part of a wider ramping up of military readiness in the Baltic.
‘Everything to do with the Baltic is such an obvious candidate (for the deployment of military resources),’ Kristersson told the FT in an interview last March.
‘That goes in terms of presence on Gotland, but also in terms of surveillance, in terms of submarine capabilities.’
Russian military analyst and retired Navy Captain Vasily Dandykin told Russian newswire Sputnik that a remilitarisation of Gotland would be seen as a major problem in the halls of the Kremlin.
