Royal Navy destroyer HMS Dauntless joins Ukrainian warships as they complete South Coast workout

The quintet – based in Portsmouth as part of the UK’s support to Ukraine in its ongoing struggle against Russia – completed seven days of intensive training, mixing everything from gunnery and blowing up practice mines to sailing in close formation with a major warship.

Spread along the Dorset, Hampshire and Isle of Wight coastlines, the training was the final chapter of a larger exercise intended to refine the military response of Joint Expeditionary Force nations to protect Europe’s northern flank which stretched from August until the weekend, Exercise Lion Protector.

That exercise has seen the UK Commando Force train in the Faroe Islands – the first time Royal Marines have been to the Atlantic chain since World War 2 – to safeguard the critical Greenland-Iceland-UK Gap.

The final fifth phase of Lion Protector shifted emphasis to showcasing the ability of JEF navies to protect maritime infrastructure and guarantee the security of sea lanes, making use of the five Ukrainian vessels: UNS Henichesk, Mariupol, Melitopol, Chernihiv and Cherkasy.

Lion Protector has been second only to the Ukrainian Navy’s premier annual exercise, Sea Breeze, which took place off the South Coast over the summer, in terms of scope and complexity.

Under the watchful eye of UK military personnel, the ships demonstrated their ability to defend themselves with gunnery shoots off Portland.

That led into hunting mines to hone the skills of the Ukrainian crews in locating, identifying and, where necessary, destroying underwater explosive devices using the Seafox remotely-operated submersible which has been a mainstay of Royal Navy minehunting for a couple of decades.

The crews of two Ukrainian vessels- Chernihiv and Cherkasy conducted live firings of their Seafox, culminating in the controlled explosions neutralising mine ‘threats’.