A Black Sea exercise in the English Channel. Poland's contribution to Sea Breeze 26-2

From 13 to 24 July, Exercise Sea Breeze 26-2 took place off the southern coast of the United Kingdom, this year's largest multinational training event devoted to mine countermeasures. Poland made two separate contributions: staff officers from the 12th Minesweeper Squadron, and the mine hunter ORP Mewa operating within the allied SNMCMG1 group. For the Polish Navy it was the first test of a Kormoran II class ship in a multinational exercise outside the Baltic. For the Alliance, it was an exercise about the Black Sea conducted a thousand miles from it.

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25 july 2026   |   12:29   |   Source: Gazeta Morska   |   Prepared by: Michał Iwański   |   Print

fot. 8FOW / Marynarka Wojenna RP

Why a Black Sea exercise takes place off Dorset

Sea Breeze has been held regularly since 1997, organised by Ukraine and the United States, and for most of its history it took place in the Black Sea basin. The reason for its relocation is usually described in general terms as the situation in the region. In practice a specific legal mechanism is at work.

After the start of the full-scale war, Turkey invoked the wartime provisions of the Montreux Convention, closing the Turkish Straits to warships of the belligerent states. That cut off external participants from the sea where the exercise made operational sense. The mine countermeasures strand therefore moved to the United Kingdom, first to Glasgow in 2024 and then, as the event grew in scale, to Portland in 2025 and again in 2026.

This year's edition was split in two. Sea Breeze 26-1 ran in June at Romania's Babadag training area and in the Danube Delta, an amphibious and land-focused serial involving some 450 personnel from seven nations. Sea Breeze 26-2, the maritime phase, was an incomparably larger undertaking drawing more than two thousand personnel, with a dive and salvage serial running concurrently in Latvia.

The location is not incidental for another reason. Portland lies at the entrance to the English Channel, close to the Dover Strait, one of the busiest chokepoints in the world. An exercise devoted to clearing shipping lanes in mined waters was therefore conducted in conditions naturally close to those found in any sea whose access depends on straits. That applies to the Black Sea, and equally to the Baltic.

Two Polish contributions, from two different squadrons

The Polish involvement followed two separate tracks, worth distinguishing because official communications make them easy to confuse.

Two officers from the 12th Minesweeper Squadron were assigned to the multinational exercise staff. Their task was to gather experience at the operational level with a view to further developing mine countermeasures capability and international cooperation. The staff was responsible for synchronising all components and for running the decision-making process under conditions approximating a real operation. Training covered operational planning, command and control, and the integration of forces and assets in a multi-domain environment. International sources add that the staff also worked on planning and targeting, electronic warfare, and the integration of uncrewed systems into the operational picture.

At sea, meanwhile, the work was carried out by ORP Mewa, a ship of the 13th Minesweeper Squadron. Both squadrons belong to the 8th Coastal Defence Flotilla but are separate units, and Mewa was not operating at Portland as a national contingent but as part of the allied SNMCMG1 group, to which she has been assigned for six months.

ORP Mewa and the first overseas test of a Kormoran II

ORP Mewa, pennant number 603, is the third mine hunter of Project 258 Kormoran II, commissioned on 14 February 2023 and based in Gdynia. From 1 July to 31 December 2026 she constitutes Polish Military Contingent Kormoran 2026, serving within Standing NATO Mine Countermeasures Group 1. The legal basis is a presidential decision of 19 June 2026, and the contingent is capped at 51 personnel. The ship is commanded by Lieutenant Commander Bartosz Blaszke.

This is the first time a vessel of the class has joined a standing NATO group, and the first overseas deployment of any of Poland's new mine hunters. The contingent's area of operations covers the Baltic, the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea and the Atlantic.

The ship's characteristics explain why this type suits such tasks. A Kormoran II measures 58.5 metres with a displacement of 850 tonnes, carries a crew of 45, and is driven by two Voith-Schneider cycloidal propellers powered by MTU diesels, giving a top speed of around 15 knots and a range of up to 2,500 nautical miles. The hull is built from non-magnetic austenitic steel.

That last detail is central and rarely explained. Modern sea mines respond not to contact but to the physical fields generated by a passing vessel, among them the magnetic field. A ship built of conventional steel is itself a detonating agent. A non-magnetic hull, together with cycloidal propulsion allowing precise manoeuvring at minimal revolutions, is therefore the condition of entry into waters where mines may still lie. The capability is a niche one and in short supply across NATO, which is why mine countermeasures groups are maintained on standing readiness rather than assembled ad hoc.

The same name opened Poland's presence in the group a quarter century ago

There is a coincidence in this story worth recording, because it illustrates the continuity of the programme.

Poland's presence in NATO's standing mine countermeasures groups began in the autumn of 2002, when from 12 October to 11 December a modernised Project 206FM base minesweeper with pennant number 623 joined what was then MCM FORNORTH, the predecessor of today's SNMCMG1. Her name was ORP Mewa. Twenty-four years later, the first Kormoran II in the same group is a ship of the same name, pennant number 603.

Between those dates the Polish presence has been essentially unbroken. A particular role fell to the mine countermeasures command ship ORP Kontradmirał Xawery Czernicki, which served five times as the group's flagship, in 2010, 2011, 2013, 2023 and 2026. In the second half of 2025 the minesweeper ORP Necko stood a six-month watch as Polish Military Contingent Noteć 2025. The Czernicki 2026 mission was ending precisely as Mewa's began.

Rear Admiral Mirosław Jurkowlaniec, deputy inspector of the Navy, stressed at the ship's send-off in Gdynia that the mine countermeasures mission continues without interruption, pointing to exactly this seamless handover between successive contingents.

What was practised in Weymouth Bay

The programme covered conventional searching for and neutralisation of exercise mines, the work of explosive ordnance disposal teams, diving and salvage operations, and the use of uncrewed surface and underwater vehicles. The crew of ORP Mewa concentrated on locating exercise mines and on the procedures for identifying and neutralising them.

The way that work is sequenced matters. The pattern used in exercises of this kind begins with an initial survey of the area by uncrewed vehicles, then inspection of the object by a remotely operated vehicle, and only at the end the introduction of a diver. Each successive stage raises the risk to a human being, so the logic of the whole process lies in deferring that moment as far as possible. The growth of uncrewed systems changes not so much the final step as the number of situations in which it has to be reached at all.

The exercise was structured around NATO's operational capabilities concept, under which units are certified at two levels. The first confirms baseline interoperability, meaning the ability to pass and receive orders and to operate within a task group. The second certifies a capability declared by the nation concerned. Despite the growing role of uncrewed systems, the weight of the exercise still rested on crewed platforms and their formal allied evaluation.

Scenarios were built on Black Sea experience, where the Ukrainian navy has been conducting mine countermeasures under combat conditions for four years. The declared aim of the American and Ukrainian co-leads was to strengthen Ukraine's mine countermeasures capability, but the flow of knowledge runs both ways. Experience gained by Ukrainians under real threat is material that cannot be manufactured on a training range.

Fifteen nations, and one presence that stands out

Fifteen states took part in this year's edition. The 8th Coastal Defence Flotilla names among them France, Spain, Japan, Poland, the United States, Sweden, Turkey, the United Kingdom and Ukraine. International sources add Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Latvia, Moldova and Romania, along with NATO Allied Maritime Command.

Japan stands out on that list. A state outside the treaty area, remote from both seas the exercise concerns, taking part in mine countermeasures training in the English Channel. Japan's maritime forces field one of the strongest mine countermeasures fleets in the world, built over decades around the experience of clearing their own waters after the Second World War. Tokyo's presence in this company signals that mine countermeasures competence has become a subject of exchange on a scale reaching well beyond any one region.

Why this exercise concerns the Baltic more than it appears

Formally, Sea Breeze is about the Black Sea. In practice it is hard to imagine better training for Baltic navies, for several reasons.

Like the Black Sea, the Baltic is an enclosed sea whose accessibility depends on narrow passages. Blocking or mining the approaches in either case cuts coastal states off from commercial shipping without any need for action on the open sea. For Poland, whose foreign trade passes overwhelmingly through the ports of the Tricity and Szczecin, that is a threat existential to the economy rather than merely a military problem.

The sea mine also remains one of the cheapest instruments in the arsenal. Estimates cited by analytical centres in the region put the cost at around one hundred thousand euros per unit, against several to a dozen million for an anti-ship missile. Its purpose is not only to destroy an opponent's vessel but to force him into prolonged and expensive search operations and to restrict his freedom of action in chosen waters. Mine countermeasures capability is therefore the answer to a weapon with an exceptionally favourable cost-to-effect ratio for the attacker.

On top of this comes a dimension that is already routine in the Baltic. Since January 2025 NATO has run Operation Baltic Sentry, established after a series of damage incidents to undersea power and telecommunications cables involving vessels linked to the Russian shadow fleet. Protecting undersea infrastructure and conducting mine countermeasures are formally distinct tasks, but they rest on the same set of skills: seabed survey, identification of underwater objects, diver work and the operation of uncrewed vehicles. A ship able to find and identify a mine is also able to check what is happening beside a cable.

The tasks of the Kormoran 2026 contingent are, finally, defined broadly. They cover maintaining the safety of allied shipping through searching for, patrolling and destroying dangerous underwater objects, including ordnance sunk during both world wars, clearing approaches to ports, confined waters and shipping lanes, and building operational awareness through patrolling and demonstration of presence.

ORP Mewa's mission runs until 31 December 2026.

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ORP Mewa Sea Breeze 2026 Marynarka Wojenna RP obrona przeciwminowa NATO

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