Yudh Abhyas 2026 commences at Auli in Uttarakhand and at the Mahajan Field Firing Ranges in Rajasthan, with the 22nd edition of the annual joint military exercise between the Indian Army and the United States Army opening on Tuesday across two theatres at once. Six hundred personnel from both Armies are taking part, according to the Ministry of Defence.

The opening ceremony was held at Auli. Maj Gen Amaresh Gunjan, General Officer Commanding, 14 Infantry Division, and Col Ben Jackman, commander of the 1st Mobile Brigade Combat Team of the US Army's 11th Airborne Division, were present, official sources said.

Two theatres worked at the same time

Running the western desert and the high Himalaya together is what sets this edition apart from the twenty one before it. Mahajan, near Bikaner, offers open ground, long sight lines and the space for mechanised manoeuvre and long range fires. Auli, in Chamoli district, sits at around 2,500 metres and is placed by earlier reporting at roughly 95 kilometres from the Line of Actual Control, which brings acclimatisation, terrain and logistics into every tactical problem set for the troops there.

Yudh Abhyas 2026 commences in a format the series has not used before. The two sites are being run simultaneously rather than one after the other, the ministry said.

That arrangement asks something different of the staff work behind the exercise. A single exercise control has to hold two dispersed contingents, two sets of terrain constraints and two very different fire support pictures inside one training plan, and the command, communications and logistics load that follows is itself part of what is being tested.


Integrated Battle Groups at the centre of the training

The stated aim is to enhance joint military capability in the employment of Integrated Battle Groups in mountainous and semi mountainous terrain, with the emphasis on infantry dominated operations, according to the Ministry of Defence.

The Integrated Battle Group, or IBG, is the Indian Army's reorganised formation concept, sized between a brigade and a division and built with infantry, armour, artillery, air defence, engineers and signals held under one commander so that it can be committed quickly and fight as a self contained package. The construct has been carried through the Army's restructuring effort alongside the Rudra Brigades and Bhairav Battalions. Putting it into a bilateral exercise, against a partner army that has spent the past decade rebuilding its own Arctic and mountain formations, gives it a workout the Army cannot generate on its own.

Infantry dominated operations, the phrase the ministry used, points the training at the rifle company rather than at set piece armour work.

Interoperability is to be strengthened through the exchange of operational best practices, joint planning and coordinated execution, the ministry said. India conducts more military exercises with the United States than with any other country, and the two sides signed a ten year defence framework this year, recorded in the Ministry of Defence Annual Report 2025-26 alongside the year's other bilateral agreements.

Yudh Abhyas 2026 commences with technology infusion as a stated focus

Technology infusion will remain a key focus, the Ministry of Defence said in its announcement of the commencement, with training on the employment of drones and autonomous systems for surveillance and reconnaissance, along with an exchange of expertise on emerging technologies and multi domain operations.

Unmanned systems have moved from a supporting role to a primary one in reconnaissance, target acquisition and strike over the past three years, and the counter measures have moved with them.

The earlier phase at Mahajan

Work at the Rajasthan site had been under way before Tuesday's ceremony. Medical personnel from both armies set up a field treatment area at Mahajan last week and rehearsed casualty care and evacuation ahead of range work, according to the American side's exercise record, with hot weather injuries and artillery related trauma named as the conditions being planned for.

The exercise runs to 28 September, and official signage at Auli carried the window as 9 to 28 September.

Earlier reporting had placed the 3rd Multi Domain Task Force and the Mobile Low, Slow, Small Unmanned Aircraft Integrated Defeat System, known as MLIDS, in this year's order of battle, both for the first time on Indian soil. Neither is named in the ministry's announcement of the opening, which stays with the training aims and the participation figure.

A series that has grown for two decades

Yudh Abhyas began in 2002 as a platoon level drill and has been held annually since 2004, sponsored on the American side by US Army Pacific, with the venue alternating between the two countries. IDW reported the 22nd edition when it was first announced earlier this month, and the Indian Army's exercise calendar this year has run heavily to bilateral training of this kind, including Exercise MAITREE-XV with the Royal Thai Army at Surat Thani in August.

Past editions have used Auli and Chaubattia for high altitude work, the Rajasthan desert for manoeuvre, and Joint Base Lewis McChord and Alaska for cold weather and urban training.

The 21st edition was held at Fort Wainwright, Alaska, in September 2025, where an Indian contingent of 450 personnel drawn from a Madras Regiment battalion trained with soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment, a turnout the Indian Army then described as among its largest for a bilateral exercise.