NATO Black Sea exercise kicks off as Moscow puts its regional forces on alert, defensenews.com

The U.S. warship Porter entered the Black Sea on Sunday to take part in an annual NATO exercise, days after Russia placed its Black Sea forces on alert.

Sea Breeze 2020 is cohosted by the United States and Ukraine and involves more than 2,000 personnel from Bulgaria, Georgia, Norway, Romania, Spain and Turkey.

It will run through July 26 and focus on warfare areas such as air defense, anti-sub warfare, damage control and search and rescue, according to a Navy release. A Navy P-8A Poseidon sub hunter aircraft is also participating.

The exercise will take place exclusively at sea to help mitigate COVID-19, according to the release. Läs artikel