Romania Starts Navy Exercises in Black Sea, Danube: Sea Shield 2023

The Romanian Naval Forces are organizing, from 20 March to 2 April, the multinational exercise “Sea Shield 2023”, planned to take place in the area of responsibility, in the south-east of Romania, at sea, on the river, in the Danube Delta and in the coastal area.

Approximately 3,400 military personnel and representatives of several institutions from the national defense system, as well as from 12 other allied and partner countries (Albania, Bulgaria, France, Georgia, Greece, Poland, Portugal, the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and Northern Ireland, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Republic of Moldova, the United States of America and Turkey) will conduct complex training activities in all environments.

More than 30 military vessels of the Romanian Naval Forces, two military vessels of the Bulgarian Naval Forces, 14 aircrafts from France, Romania, the United States and Turkey, 15 fast intervention boats and patrol vessels of the institutions of the national defense system, 57 military vehicles and other combat capabilities, such as mobile launchers, detachments of special operations forces and divers for incursion combat and against explosive devices, specialists in CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear) defense and platoons of infantry and military paratroopers will execute the training sequences planned by the Romanian Naval Forces.

Also, this year, Romania received from Elbit Systems Ltd turrets, weapon stations, and mortar systems worth of $120 million in order to prepare the country for an undesired escalation of the conflict in Ukraine.

The multinational exercise “Sea Shield 2023” is the most complex training event planned and conducted by the Romanian Naval Forces, through the Naval Component Command, in the training year 2023, and contributes to the promotion of Romania’s regional and international initiatives and interests, as well as to increase the level of interoperability between the participating forces. The exercise is also included in NATO’s Combined Joint Enhanced Training (CJET) and Enhanced Military Training Exercise Programme (eMTEP).

NATO also conducted an anti-aircraft missile training in Romania on February 9th this year. The exercise was called  “EAGLE ROYAL 23” and aimed to test the artillery systems’ interoperability, in a fictitious scenario, during a NATO Article-5 collective defense operation conducted on the South-Eastern Flank of the Alliance.

“Sea Shield” is a complex concept for training Allied forces and was proposed by Romania at the NATO Summit in Warsaw in 2016 to strengthen security measures on the south-eastern European flank.

The opening ceremony of the multinational exercise “Sea Shield 2023” will take place on Monday, 20 March, from 10.00 to 11.00, in the port of Constanta, at the Passenger Terminal, where the aim, objectives, participating forces and the exercise deployment will be presented.