On Saturday, July 10, the Commander of the Naval Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Alexey Neizhpapa announced that the Sea Breeze-2021 multinational military exercise, which began on June 28, has ended. This was reported by the press service of the Ukrainian Armed Forces on Facebook.
According to Oleksiy Neizhpapa, all the tasks assigned to the servicemen were fully completed.
“Sea Breeze-2021 training has ended! All assigned tasks have been completed in full,” Commander of the Naval Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksiy Neizhpapa said on Facebook.
The official closing ceremony of the exercise was held at the Officers' House.
According to the Commander of the Navy, during the exercise, divers went down more than 330 times, the pilots flew more than 80 hours, and the ships sailed more than 13 thousand miles (21,000 km).
He also added that the Black Sea unites nations and countries, and those who do not understand that the sea is not a fence becomes their opponent.
“Ships from Exercise Sea Breeze-2021 have returned to Odesa for their final brief! Job well done! Tomorrow the exercise will be officially over and the ships will be headed to Bulgarian lead exercise Breeze!” the press service of the Sea Breeze exercises said on Twitter.
The Sea Breeze exercise took place from June 28 to July 10 in the Black Sea region. Ukraine and the United States jointly conducted the exercise with the participation and support of 32 countries.
Thus, on July 9, the Bulgarian anti-submarine corvette "Bodri" has already left Ukrainian waters.
Sea Breeze-2021 was the largest since 1997, when the first SB exercises were held. 32 countries participated, including the United States, Australia, Bulgaria, Brazil, Canada, Japan, Greece, Israel, Latvia, the Netherlands, Romania, South Korea, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. There were around 5,000 troops involved along with 32 ships, 40 aircrafts and 18 special operations teams.
Importantly, it is planned to hold five more international military exercises in Ukraine by the end of 2021.