Joe Campbell & Curtis Lancaster

BBC News

The Royal Navy and its Nato allies have been demonstrating their commitment to supporting Ukraine by showcasing and sharing their maritime capabilities.

Exercise Sea Breeze 2025 took place off Portland in Dorset on Monday and featured ships from the UK, US, France, Belgium, Greece, Poland, and the Netherlands.

Royal Navy Commodore Steve Banfield said: "The only way that navies can work together is by training together."

As part of the day, Ukrainian forces were trained to use modern vessels for clearing mines in areas like the Black Sea.

Cdre Banfield, who is the co-leader of the maritime capability coalition for Ukraine, added that there has been significant mining by both Russia and Ukraine during the conflict between the two countries.

He said giving Ukrainian forces the capabilities to use the Mine Counter Measure vessels, which the Royal Navy use, will allow Ukrainian forces to clear the seas in a post-war world and help to "keep ships safe at sea".

He added that it is particularly vital to keep shipping lanes open as Ukraine is a significant global supplier of agricultural goods.

Reflecting on the day of exercises, Cdre Banfield said: "So this is to hone the individual skills of the operators, to hone the skills of the battle staffs, to plan mine counter-measure operations but most importantly is for the navies of the world to be able to operate together so that when we do this for real in a combat situation, we have done this before."

He admitted that there is also much that the Nato forces can learn from Ukraine.

"There are not many countries in the world that have real combat experience during the wartime," said Commodore Dmytro Kovalenko, chief of the training command of the Ukrainian Navy.

He added that training in safe waters off the coast of the UK is "very different" to the environment that the Ukrainian Navy is actually operating in.

Describing the daily threat that his country faces, he said: "We are facing mostly unmanned systems threats, so our main task and our main focus is to protect our ships and port infrastructure against unmanned systems."

He added: "The whole nation, the whole country is a target and we are dealing with an adversary that has no restrictions at all.

"We are struggling for survival of the nation."