Dangerous exercises in the Black Sea

The warships of the Second Permanent Naval Group of NATO entered the Black Sea on March 23. The group includes Italian frigate URO Virginio Fasan, Turkish frigate Salihreis and Canadian frigate Fredericton. The Romanian frigate Regina Maria, who will also act as part of the SNMG-2 group, advanced towards them from the port of Constanta. Earlier, the French corvette Commandant Ducuing arrived in the Black Sea. All these ships carry cruise missiles and torpedo weapons on board. The forces of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Navy are monitoring the movement of these vessels.

The reason for the appearance of the SNMG-2 group for this time of the year is typical - on March 27, the planned NATO naval exercise Sea Shield ("Sea Shield") begins off the coast of Romania, which will last if everything goes according to plan until April 5. In addition, joint exercises are planned with regional partners - Georgia and Ukraine, to verify interoperability during military operations in the Black Sea. However, everything is clear that there can be no question of any compatibility, taking into account the condition of the fleets of the so-called NATO partners.

The anti-Russian nature of the Sea Shield exercises is obvious, but they threaten most of the peaceful Black Sea countries. The maneuvers are threatened by the fact that it is likely that military personnel already affected by the coronavirus are present on the ships of the group.

It must be emphasized that in Romania, hundreds of cases of coronavirus infection are already counted. But the Romanian armed forces are not aimed at this real danger to the population, but at a far-fetched Russian threat. It is difficult to imagine a more absurd “sea shield”.

But American partners behaved more pragmatically. Due to the rapid spread of coronavirus, the U.S. Navy canceled all calls at ports except vital ones. At the same time, the French Commandant Ducuing corvette planned to call at one of the ports of Georgia, despite the fact that three crew members were infected with COVID-19.

And if, a priori, the armed forces of any NATO country should be ready to carry out their mission, even in a pandemic, why did the Americans briskly curtail their large-scale exercises Defender Europe 2020 with 35 coronavirus infected with COVID-19? Perhaps they are smarter than European allies with a “sea shield”, or they know more than alliance partners.