Exercise Sea Breeze 2008: Mission Complete
NEWS RELEASE from United States European Command
Jul 28, 2008
By Exercise Sea Breeze Public Affairs
ODESSA, Ukraine - Exercise Sea Breeze 2008 (SB08) concluded today with a closing ceremony highlighting the achievements during the 11th annual maritime exercise. Navy Adm. Mark P. Fitzgerald, Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Commander, Allied Joint Force Command Naples, was in attendance for the ceremony.
SB08, incorporating 16 countries and more than 2,000 service members, is a joint and combined maritime exercise held annually in the Black Sea and at various land-based Ukrainian training facilities with the goals of strengthening maritime security and stability, sharing information, and building teamwork and mutual cooperation.
"I'd like to congratulate the 16 nations involved in Sea Breeze 2008 on an extremely well planned and conducted exercise," said U.S. Navy Captain John Moore, Commodore of CTF-367 and Sea Breeze deputy commander. "Everyone participating in this exercise should be very proud of the level of interoperability and cooperation that was achieved among the sea, air and land components as well as among nations."
The exercise kicked off with a training and interoperability phase to ensure the participating nations were comfortable communicating with each other and working together. The exercise moved quickly into the operational phase where more than 200 training events, or "live" operations, were conducted.
The air component, comprising of 17 aircraft from four countries, flew nearly 50 sorties. During the sorties, it completed 17 Para drops of nearly 400 paratroopers, anti-submarine warfare operations and search and rescue missions.
The maritime component, comprising of 16 ships from six countries, conducted maritime interdiction operations, air warfare, search and rescue, anti-submarine warfare, amphibious operations and mine countermeasure operations. Divers from six nations also conducted several diving missions and practiced diving with each other's equipment to ensure full interoperability.
In addition, the diving teams conducted reconnaissance near the landing area of the exercise zone and prepared the beach for the amphibious landing that was conducted in the final phase of the exercise. The land component, based at the Shirokiy Lan training camp, comprising of a battalion of soldiers and marines from four countries, conducted several training missions in urban warfare, medical evacuation, live fire, improvised explosive device detection and checkpoint operations.
"We completed the training we set out to accomplish, and we have strengthened the already strong partnerships among our countries," said Ukrainian Admiral Viktor Maksimov. "We look forward to next year's exercise, and I personally invite everyone here back for Sea Breeze 2009!"
Nations participating in this 11th anniversary of Exercise Sea Breeze include host country Ukraine as well Armenia, Azerbaijan, Canada, Denmark, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Latvia, Macedonia, Norway, Romania, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States.