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| Drazki |
The joint naval exercise of US, Bulgarian and Romanian navies in the Black Sea has started,March 12, 2014.
The military exercise was postponed on March 11 due to bad weather. The USS Truxtun, part of the US Sixth Fleet, together with
Bulgarian naval frigate Drazki and three Romanian ships will take part in the drill in the Black Sea, BGNES reports.
In the 2013 movie Captain Phillips starring Tom Hanks. All the DDG interior views were
actually filmed on the USS Truxtun (DDG-103)
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| Albert, 24, and Cobler, 35, are both assigned to the destroyer Truxtun, a Norfolk, Va.-based ship that serves as a set piece in the film |
The U.S. Navy announced March 06 that a guided-missile destroyer, the USS Truxtun, has left Souda Bay in Greece and will steam toward the Black Sea -- and the crisis in Ukraine.
Pentagon officials insisted that the move was unrelated to the rising tensions in the Crimean peninsula, which was seized by Russian forces. Still, with the United States and Russia locked in a tense standoff over the future of Crimea, the U.S. moving military assets toward Ukraine is fueling new jumpiness in the already unsettled region.
In one example, the Hurriyet Daily News newspaper in Turkey reported March 5 that a U.S. military ship would be maneuvering through the Bosphorus Straits on its way to the Black Sea in the following two days. The newspaper did not name the ship, but linked the plan to the crisis in Crimea.
Navy officials said the Truxtun's deployment has been planned for months. The ship's crew will train alongside counterparts from the Bulgarian and Romanian militaries. The Truxton carries about 300 sailors and is typically armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles and a variety of other weapons.
[March 5]
Ukrainian navy corvette Ternopil, at harbor of Sevastopol, Ukraine. The blankets and mattresses are placed over the side of the ship to hinder any attempted assault.
Ukrainian Navy units in Crimea remained cut off as of March 5 morning as pro-Russian radicals turned off electricity and water supplies, and blocked entrances to military units, the press and information department of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry reported on March 5.
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| Slavutych, Ukrainian command ship, U510 |
[January 2013]
The
largest in post-Soviet history exercises of the Russian Navy started
in the Black and Mediterranean seas. They involve warships of the
Black Sea, the Baltic and Northern Fleets as well as other types of
armed forces - the Army and the Air Force, including long-range
aviation.
The
highest status of the exercises is confirmed by the fact that, for
the first time, the overall management responsibility was given to
the Chief of General Staff, Colonel-General Valery Gerasimov. The
exercises that will last until January 29, 2013
[January 11]
"A tactical group of Black Sea Fleet warships headed by the cruiser Moskva will undertake exercises in the eastern sector of the Mediterranean Sea," the Ministry said. "The tanker Ivan Bubnov has fuelled the ships and emergency drills have been carried out. On January 10 the tanker filled its fuel and water tanks and food stores at the Cyprus port of Larnaka."
A Baltic Fleet group consisting of the patrol vessel Yaroslav Mudry and tanker Lena will dock at Valetta on Malta for storing and to allow the crew to rest, the Ministry said. The ships will then head for the eastern Mediterranean, where the two ships will practice stores transfer at sea in day and night and the Yaroslav Mudry will carry out anti-submarine warfare drills.
[December 25]
“The main aim of sending the ships to the Mediterranean is to
accomplish the missions set by the navy command, conduct exercises and
show the flag.”
On December 24, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov dismissed
media reports there were commando units and military equipment for Syria
on board some of the warships.
A naval task force from Russia’s Northern Fleet left the Severomorsk
base last Wednesday and set course for the Horn of Africa on a new
anti-piracy mission, the Defense Ministry said.
It includes the large antisubmarine ship Severomorsk, the salvage tug
Altai, and the tanker Dubna, as well as a contingent of naval infantry
subunits. The force will travel the length of the Mediterranean, pass
through the Suez Canal and relieve the Pacific Fleet task force that has
been there on an anti-piracy mission since November.
A Baltic Fleet task force set sail December 18 for the eastern
Mediterranean where it will relieve a group of Black Sea warships. The
force includes the frigate Yaroslav Mudry, the large landing ships
Kaliningrad and Alexander Shabalin, the salvage tug SB-921 and the
tanker Lena.
The new anti-piracy mission is expected to reach the region by mid-January.
Russia keeps a naval task force in the Gulf of Aden as part of the international effort to fight piracy off the Somali coast.
On December 17, large landing ships Azov and Nikolai Filchenkov from
Russia’s Black Sea Fleet left Novorossiysk for the Syrian port of
Tartus. The ships are carrying naval infantry units for protection
during the voyage. They are expected to join the Black Sea Fleet task
force comprising the missile cruiser Moskva and the frigate Smetlivy in
the Aegean Sea on December 28 before heading to Tartus.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich confirmed on December 24
that Russia has a contingency plan for evacuation of Russian citizens
from Syria if necessary.
[December 18]
The squadron of five ships that sailed from the Baltic Sea base of Baltiysk includes a destroyer, a tugboat, a tanker and two large amphibious vessels that could evacuate hundreds of people.
Another group of three navy ships departed Tuesday from Severomorsk, the main base of Russia’s Northern Fleet on the Kola Peninsula. While their official mission is anti-piracy patrol in the Gulf of Aden, the ships will sail past the Syrian shores and may linger there if need be.
A second coming to East African waters is at hand for the Marshall Shaposhnikov (BPK 543), a large Udaloy Class submarine destroyer which remains one of the flagship vessels of the Russian Navy Pacific Fleet despite the 28 years it has spent on active service. The Russian Navy's Pacific Fleet has dispatched a fresh squadron of three vessels to combat piracy off the East African coast.
The squadron comprises destroyer Marshall Shaposhnikov, the oil tanker Irkut and the rescue tug Alatau. The flotilla sailed out of the Pacific Fleet naval base in Vladivostok on November 2, heading for the Arabian Sea.
While en-route to the Gulf of Aden the vessels will hold an exercise with the Indian Navy and call at its port of Mumbai. The vessels will also visit Djibouti as they join an international naval anti-piracy force which comprises vessels from the European Union, the United States, China, India, Iran and South Korea.
After a three-month deployment, the squadron will return to Vladivostok in a voyage that will include stop-overs in naval bases in the Seychelles, Thailand and South Korea. The flotilla also becomes the Russian Navy's eighth naval patrol squadron to be deployed with the international forces in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean since anti-piracy and maritime operations began three years ago.
"Our military medics gave the necessary medical help to all of the wounded bandits. We loaded the dead bandit's body onto one of the pirates' boats with the rest of the pirates, and sent it to the nearest coast, towards Somalia." [approximately 290NM east of Socotra Island]
"We loaded water, food and all their other things -- except the confiscated weapons, boarding ladders and navigation tools -- into the pirates' boat," he said.
"The further fate of the released pirates is not known to us."
Brigade Captain Ildar Akhmerov, the commander of a group of warships in Russia's Pacific Fleet, made the comments aboard the Marshal Shaposhnikov, the destroyer that led the operation to free the captured tanker.
"We will have to act as our forefathers did when they met pirates", Russian President Dmitry Medvedev pledged. "Of course, we will fight pirates with the full force of the naval law."
