As tensions rise with Russia, Navy’s Truman group joins NATO exercise in Mediterranean

As tensions between the U.S. and Russia rise, the Norfolk-based USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group has joined a NATO exercise in the eastern Mediterranean that began Monday.

The exercise began as a Russian amphibious group approaches from the west, planning to join Russian Pacific warships for an exercise in the region.

The NATO exercise, called Neptune Strike 2022, is the latest phase in NATO’s “Project Neptune,” which focuses on linking command and control of a carrier strike group to NATO. This effort began in 2020.

The exercise involves a long-planned handover of command and control of the USS Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group from Navy’s Sixth Fleet to Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO,

“The capability of SIXTHFLT and STRIKFORNATO combined staffs to enable a handover of the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group demonstrates the power and cohesiveness of our maritime forces and the NATO Alliance,” said Vice Adm. Gene Black, commander of Sixth Fleet and the NATO’s striking and support forces.

The Truman strike group, which deployed last month and has since been mostly operating in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, includes the Truman itself, nine squadrons of Naval Air Station Oceana-based Carrier Air Wing 1, the Norfolk-based cruiser USS San Jacinto, Norfolk-based destroyers USS Bainbridge, USS Cole, USS Gravely and Mayport, Fla.-based USS Jason Dunham. The Royal Norwegian Navy frigate HNoMS Fridtjof Nansen has been operating with group since last fall, participating in the group’s Composite Training Unit Exercise, or COMPTUEX and then deploying with it from Norfolk.

Last year, destroyers attached to the Norfolk-based USS Dwight D. Eisenhower carrier strike operated in the Black Sea, which lies between Ukraine and Turkey, while the Eisenhower itself provided air support to NATO campaigns against ISIS enclaves in Syria, while operating in the Mediterranean waters south of Turkey and roughly 1,000 miles south of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, six Russian amphibious ships from the Baltic and Northern Fleets, are heading towards the Mediterranean. After rounding the coast of Spain, and transiting the Strait of Gibraltar, they’ll be approaching the NATO ships from the west.

They are to join a Russian Pacific Fleet group also headed for the area from the east, where it has been operating with Iran and China, for wide ranging exercises that will eventually involve 140 ships and more than 10,000 troopers in several areas, according to published reports.

Tension have climbed since Russia deployed more than 100,000 troops on the northern and eastern borders of Ukraine border. U.S. and NATO allies fear Russia is planning military action against its neighbor and former fellow republic of the defunct Soviet Union.

“We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment, including through strengthening our collective defense,” Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary-general, said in a statement Monday.

Dave Ress, 757-247-4535, dress@dailypress.com