French, Russian, UK sailors in Norfolk for training

By Lauren King
The Virginian-Pilot
© June 21, 2011

NORFOLK

Ships from Russia, France and the United Kingdom arrived Monday to participate in a two-week exercise with the U.S. Navy off the coast of Virginia.

FRUKUS 2011 – named for the participating countries – is an exercise to improve maritime security through open dialogue and increased training between the participating navies, a news release from the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman said.

The training will take place in two phases. In the ashore portion, sailors from each ship will train in areas including damage control, firefighting and ship handling. The at-sea portion, which begins next week, includes critical training in maritime domain awareness, anti-piracy and maritime interdiction operations.

A shore-based multinational combined task group will provide command and control for the ships during the at-sea portion of the training exercise.

Forces participating in the two-week exercise include: U.S. Carrier Strike Group 10, Destroyer Squadron 26 and destroyer James E. Williams; the French FS Ventose; Russian RFS Admiral Chabanenko; and United Kingdom’s HMS Dauntless.

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Russian Ship in Naval base?

Submitted by sedona1 on Thu, 06/23/2011 at 9:08 pm.

I guess I never would of thought that a Russian ship would sit pierside at the Naval Base. I spoke to a few of the young Russian sailors all of whom were really interested in all the sports cars that pulled into the McDonald's parking lot. Perhaps their is hope for mankind!