International Ex TOXIC VALLEY 2022 gets underway at Defence CBRN Centre Zemianske Kostoľany

Ex TOXIC VALLEY 2022 has got underway at the Defence Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Training and Testing Centre (DCBRN TTC) Zemianske Kostoľany, with Sampling and Identification of Chemical Agents (SICA) teams and mobile lab (MOBLAB) teams from 12 nations as the training audience.

The aim of the exercise, involving CBRN experts from Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Slovenia, the United States of America and Slovakia, is to exchange experience in taking samples in contaminated environments and to practise working together with CBRN defence capabilities for domestic and international crisis management operations.

On the exercise, the SICA teams will test their skills and CBRN defence procedures for detecting and sampling toxic chemical substances and will perform preliminary chemical analysis at the forensic level, consistent with NATO standards. This will give CBRN specialists an opportunity to compare their procedures with those used by SICA teams in other countries. All in all, the exercise is a special chance for all participants to gain an even greater insight into specific aspects of the CBRN capability.

Col Oliver Toderiška, Chief of CBRN Defence in the Slovak Armed Forces, said: “Over the next two weeks, the exercising troops will be performing specific tasks in response to scripted exercise scenarios. These scenarios are based on lessons learned from real-life situations and their design has been greatly aided by members of the Specialist Firearms Unit of the Interior Ministry so as to bring CBRN defence training closer to realistic incident responses.”

According to the statements of EU and NATO representatives on the exercise, Ex TOXIC VALLEY is unique insofar as it offers exceptional options for CBRN defence training with the toxic chemical warfare agents (CWAs) and, if required, it also enables CBRN units to test their readiness to deal with CBRN incidents as a threat to civilian populations.