NATO exercises not involving US troops have begun across Greece, Bulgaria and Romania as European members of the Washington-led alliance reel from Wednesday evening’s address by US Defence Secretary Peter Hegseth.

The Steadfast Dart manoeuvres are led by the British military and involve nine countries, including another nuclear power, France. Commanders billed them as a bid to show Nato is able to effectively deploy force in eastern Europe without the United States, which has signalled under President Donald Trump that it is no longer prepared to contribute financially or militarily to the Ukraine war.

Greek and Spanish marines led an amphibious assault near the Greek city of Volos today in the first deployment of Nato’s new Allied Reaction Force. The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) staged protests at the deployments.