After 7 weeks of deployment in the Baltic, the Céphée returned to the base port, in Brest. During this mission, the Céphée took part in the Northern Coast and Hunter exercises before being attached to the Brilliant Shield mission.
Northen Coast is an exercise bringing together the navies bordering the Baltic Sea and which aims to strengthen interoperability in all areas of warfare. The involvement of CMT Céphée in this exercise allowed us to deepen our skills with the German and Lithuanian navies, while affirming the French presence in the Baltic Sea.
Hunter focused the work on minehunting cooperation with the Finnish Navy. The Vahterpää and Céphée hunters thus hunted practice mines previously laid by the Finnish navy near the access to the port of Hanko. This bilateral exercise allowed fruitful exchanges about procedures and to cross know-how. The Céphée also came to the aid of the Finnish minehunter during an operation to recover a Finnish underwater drone, thus demonstrating the quality of Franco-Finnish relations.
The Céphée was finally associated with the NATO operation Brilliant Shield. In a particular context in the Baltic, the CMT Céphée contributed to the strengthening of NATO’s defensive posture in the area while participating in France’s independent assessment of the situation.
The Céphée was able to work with the majority of partner countries and countries bordering the Baltic, showing France’s attachment to safety at sea and respect for international law. Stopovers in Lithuania, Finland, Norway and Poland were all opportunities to strengthen ties with our local partners. The stops in Klaipeda and Oslo also made it possible to honor respectively the 1,870 French prisoners of war who died during the construction of the Guillaume Canal and the 34 Norwegian sailors who died during the Normandy landings.
