Two river monitors participate in instruction exercise on Danube, between Braila and Moldova Noua

Two river monitors are taking part, in the May 10-20 period, in an instruction exercise on the Danube, between Braila and Moldova Noua, to update the operational procedures for the protection of river transport routes, used by the servicemen of the Mihail Kogalniceanu River Flotilla, shows a press release sent, on Tuesday, by the Naval Forces General Staff, report agerpres.

According to the source, the exercise of the two ships is an instruction sequence which is part of the Danube Protector 21 Exercise and comprises activities to update the geographic-military and navigation database, as well as training to consolidate the crew's abilities to use the equipment on board.

"The Opanez (F-177) and Posada (F-179) river monitors will monitor river traffic, during the execution of navigation, will stop in the Danube ports of Calarasi, Giurgiu, Orsova and Drobeta Turnu-Severin, will transit the locks at the Iron Gates (1 and 2) and will execute numerous exercises to ensure ship vitality (onboard firefighting and flood management exercises), force protection, aerial and land target discovery, as well as inspection and control exercises on vessels suspicious of illegal traffic. The two river monitors will navigate, upstream, up to km 1050, and, after the updating of the database on the port infrastructure in Moldova Veche, the crews will change course, downstream, to the port of Braila, where the ships will dock at km 176," the release shows.

The officials of the Naval Forces mention that the path of the ships on the entire Romanian sector of the Danube is part of the Annual instruction plan of the Romanian Naval Forces and "develops the ability of the Romanian Army to respond, quickly and efficiently, to a large spectrum of threats on the southeastern flank of the North Atlantic Alliance, contributing to strengthening the management capacity for potential crises that may appear in the region."

The Opanez and Posada river monitors were built at the Mangalia Shipyard between 1988-1990.