Sea Breeze maritime drills see Georgia join NATO partners
The patrol vessel 'Dioskuria' (P25) of the Georgian Coast Guard during the drills. Photo via Border Police of Georgia.
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Georgian Coast Guard was among navies from NATO member states and partners last week marking over two decades of partnership for Black Sea security through the Sea Breeze 2020 maritime drills.
The coast guard personnel, with their patrol vessel Dioskuria, joined 26 ships and 19 aircraft from seven other nations conducting exercises in air defence, anti-submarine warfare, damage control, and search and rescue.
The drills involved over 2,000 naval personnel and combined arms assets. Photo via Border Police of Georgia.
Due to COVID-19 precautions this year's combined exercises only included ship manoeuvres without crew interactions, as the joint effort was conducted between July 20-26.
Over 2,000 personnel were involved in the drills from Bulgaria, Georgia, Norway, Romania, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, and the United States, with the exercise providing "unique training opportunities designed to enhance readiness, improve collaboration, and interoperability", NATO Liaison Office in Georgia said.
Georgian personnel has taken part in Sea Breeze exercises since their launch 20 years ago.
The Georgian Border Police of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is hosting Standing NATO Maritime Group TWO (SNMG2) in the territorial waters of Georgia in the Black Sea port town of Poti. Within the visit SNMG2 will conduct combined maritime exercise training with Georgian Coast Guard vessels Ochamchire and Dioskuria.
NATO Foreign Ministers have decided to deepen their partnerships with Georgia and Ukraine including with exercises in the strategic Black Sea region. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said this includes joint work to counter hybrid warfare, as well as efforts to share more air traffic radar data, “making the skies safer for all”.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg considers Georgia and Ukraine “two close partners” of the alliance in the Black Sea region. Stoltenberg made the remarks at a news briefing with Prime Minister of Romania Ludovic Orban on January 9.
The Standing NATO Mine Countermeasures Group 2 (SNMCMG2) has entered Georgia’s coastal city of Batumi earlier today to participate in three-day drills with Georgia’s coast guard personnel. The SNMCMG2 is represented by two ships the ITS VESUVIO (Italy) and TCG AMASRA (Turkey).
Congressman Adam Kinzinger, Co-chair of the Friends of Georgia Group in the United States Congress and a Republican Party member, said it is "time for Georgia to be fully a member of NATO" in his address as part of the Peace and Security in Europe online conference on Friday.
Georgia is fully ready to be a NATO member state, Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia told local media on Saturday as his government marked 12 years since the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia.
In an interview with the Georgian edition Voice of America, former NATO Commander James Stavridis says that NATO membership for Georgia will become more realistic if the country’s occupied territories will be viewed as frozen conflicts.
Land and seaborne units of the Georgian Defence Forces and the coast guard of the country are joining their counterparts from no less than 30 countries in a large-scale Sea Breeze 2021 drills centred around the Black Sea region.
The Georgian coast guard service released the assessment of its participation in Sea Breeze multinational defence drills in Ukraine and Black Sea, concluded last weekend, in its celebration of Georgian Coast Guard Day on Friday.