The ships of the Permanent Maritime Group 1 have entered the Baltic Sea and will participate in exercises with neighboring allied and partner countries.
This group consists of five ships and is led by the Commander of the Royal Netherlands Navy.
On Thursday, part of the ships of the permanent NATO maritime rapid response group SNMG1 entered the Baltic Sea. The remaining ships will arrive on Friday at the old cruise terminal of the Port of Tallinn. The primary task is to demonstrate the presence of allies in the Baltic Sea region and conduct joint exercises with the Estonian navy, the sources reported.
The arriving ships will carry out routine operations and training in the Baltic Sea together with neighboring partner countries and allied countries.
The North Atlantic military alliance regularly deploys maritime forces in the Baltic Sea to maintain a reliable and effective defense capability in line with treaty obligations. According to Commander of the Estonian Naval Forces Jüri Saska, next week it is planned to start exercises together with the Estonian marines.
“Joint exercises on the Estonian side will also be held to lay and detect mines. All this is thanks to state funding. We practice military protection both in the air and at sea. This is a fairly common practice for NATO countries,” Saska explained.
The three frigates already in port came from international northern waters in Norway. There they were in an exercise called “Cold Response”. According to Ada van de Sande, commander of the Royal Netherlands Navy, they came from places with a harsher climate to favorable conditions for the exercises.
“We always try to train our interoperability so that we can always perform well-coordinated work as an alliance. We must always confirm that we are at maximum combat readiness and can fully rely on each other, including the Estonian navy,” added van de Sande.
NATO ships will stay in the old cruise terminal for at least another week, and next week they will be replaced by another group of alliance naval forces.