Britain’s HMS Prince of Wales has been pictured leading a NATO fleet as the military alliance carries out its largest joint drill in decades.
The Royal Navy aircraft carrier, which cost £3.5bn to build, led 14 vessels in formation through an exercise in the North Sea as part of the Nordic Response 24 drill, set on training the alliance’s ability to reinforce Europe’s northern frontiers.
The 65,000-ton ship was seen on Wednesday flanked by the American destroyer USS Paul Ignatius, and Spain‘s ESPS Almirante Juan de Borbon frigate as Swedish and Finnish fighters flew overhead.
Operating around the icy fjords of Norway through Friday, the carrier strike group will practice defensive manoeuvres and amphibious landings to ‘recapture allied territory’.
Exercise Nordic Response 24 is part of the broader Exercise Steadfast Defender 24, the largest NATO exercise since the Cold War, bringing together more than 90,000 troops from all 32 countries to train in unison as war edges ever closer to Europe amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.



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