DISINFO: NATO’s “Sea Breeze 2019” was a total failure thanks to Russia
SUMMARY
The “Sea Breeze 2019” military drill failed because Russia was the winning party. Russia forced Ukraine and NATO to retreat to the Black Sea, as exercises had to be changed after Russia announced the start of their own training exercise near the Crimea. Therefore, Russia expelled the Ukrainian and NATO forces.
RESPONSE
This is a misrepresentation of events designed to portray Russia as the superior might over NATO and part of a recurring disinformation campaign undermining NATO exercises. Exercise Sea Breeze, now in its 19th iteration, took place in the Black Sea between 1st-12th July 2019 with participation and support coming from 17 other countries to include: Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, France, Georgia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine and the United Kingdom.
Whilst it is true that the military drills were rescheduled after the sudden closure of certain areas of the Black Sea by the Russian military as noted by Rear-Admiral Alexei Neizhpapa, Head of the exercise for Ukraine, this did not affect the execution of tasks. At no time were the exercises concluded as a complete failure. At the closing ceremony, U.S. Navy Capt. Matthew Lehman, commodore, Task Force 65 and U.S. exercise director for SB19, said that he was "proud of the work and training during the exercise, but countries must remain focused because work continues and that "I am encouraged by reports that the at-sea portion of the exercise has gone well thus far, and I am confident this will continue with the next at-sea period next week".