Fostering bonds of maritime forces, Vizag to witness a sea of manoeuvers

Visakhapatnam: Celebrating the bond of the friendly navies and absorbing best practices in the maritime domain, the City of Destiny is bracing for the Indian Navy's largest multilateral exercise 'MILAN-2022' to be held for the first time in the port city.

With Gepard-class frigate VPNS Quang Trung from Vietnam and BNS Umar Farooq from Bangladesh Navy already arriving in Visakhapatnam, the fleet of participating ships is expected to add HMAS Arunta from the Royal Australian Navy, ROKS Gwangju of the Republic of Korea Navy and Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Fitzgerald from US Navy, among others.

Titled as 'Camaraderie cohesion collaboration', the Vizag coast is going to witness an array of exercises at Bay of Bengal in harbour and sea phases through the multilateral exercise that aids in binding the professional community and learning from one another.

From tactical manoeuvres to seamanship drills, demonstrations in the air and simulation of complex operational scenarios, the event aims at honing the skills onboard a warship, while the east coast offers an ideal ambience to build partnerships and forge long-lasting friendships among the navies.

Although invitations have been extended to over 45 countries, barring Pakistan and China, to participate in the event, over 30 countries have so far agreed to participate in the international exercise.

With the theme centred on 'Camaraderie – Cohesion – Collaboration' that aims at projecting India as a responsible maritime power to the world at large, the focus is to hone operational skills, enhance mutual understanding, cooperation and interoperability and enable doctrinal learning in the maritime domain through professional interaction involving a host of friendly navies.

While the first phase of MILAN-2022 starts on Friday and concludes on February 28, the next phase is slated from March 1 to 4.

This is the first time that the Eastern Naval Command (ENC) is hosting the global event.

The event will witness a MILAN Village on February 26 that includes a display of Indian crafts, cuisines and other products. An operational demo, International City Parade and a two-day-long international maritime seminar on the theme 'harnessing collective maritime competence through collaboration' form a part of the exercise.

From four navies of Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Sri Lanka that participated in the first edition of MILAN back in 1995 in Andaman and Nicobar Command, the participating nations increased to 17 in the 2014 edition. With increased scope and complexity, the multilateral naval exercise has come a long way since its inception.

While ships from foreign countries will participate in the MILAN, aircraft from a few other countries will join for the exercise. Some countries agreed to send delegations alone or a combination of ships, aircraft and delegation.