UK holds largest Baltic naval drills in century to deter Russia

The UK on Friday pledged to boost defence of the Baltic states to deter a "more assertive" Russia as the British navy held its largest drills in the Baltic region, which includes a Russian territory, in more than a century.

Defence Secretary Penny Mordaunt said the British-led Joint Expeditionary Force, a rapid response unit, has reached a "new scale" in the exercise that included nearly 4,000 people and 44 vessels from nine nations.

Mordaunt called the exercise "the largest Royal Navy deployment in the Baltic for more than a hundred years", speaking to reporters aboard a British warship in the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda, which is just a stone's throw from the militarised Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

The exercise was meant to reassure eastern flank NATO allies and to demonstrate that they are "aligned and ready".

"Russia is becoming more assertive, we see her deploying more forces and new weapons, and we can imagine scenarios that may play out in the future," Mordaunt said.

"So it is important and right that we stand together with our allies."