The first team of Estonia's Scouts Battalion once again won the Utria Assault winter competition for long range reconnaissance teams in 2016, informs LETA/BNS.

A squad of the Tallinn unit of the volunteer corps Kaitseliit (Defense League) placed second and the first team of Sweden was third.

A total of 30 teams took part in the competition, 13 of which finished it. The volunteer corps Kaitseliit (Defense League) fielded 15 teams, its women's arm Naiskodukaitse one, the defense forces six and the Tallinn Prison one team. Seven foreign teams – two from both Germany and Sweden, and one from Poland, Finland and Latvia each – also took part.

The starting gun was fired in Johvi at 10 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 14 and the competition ended on Saturday.

Last year the endurance competition was also won by the first team of the Scouts Battalion.

The Utria Assault has been held since 1999 to commemorate the largest landing operation of the Estonian Navy in the War of Independence that took place on January 17-19, 1919. Its aim was to support land forces' advance towards the city of Narva. In the course of the operation Narva was liberated from Red Army troops.