Japanese MSDF Personnel Took Part in Black Sea Drill; Nakatani Says Sea Breeze 2024 Focused on Minesweeping

The Yomiuri Shimbun

15:57 JST, February 26, 2025

Defense Minister Gen Nakatani said at a press conference Tuesday that personnel of the Maritime Self-Defense Force participated in a multinational mine-sweeping exercise in September last year.

The exercise, Sea Breeze 2024, was organized by the United States and Ukraine and was conducted in territorial waters of Bulgaria in the Black Sea from Sept. 9 to 20.

Ten MSDF personnel participated in the drill, in which they mainly confirmed procedures for dealing with mock mines as training.

The mine-sweeping exercise has been held since the 1990s. Japan took part in the drill as an observer in 2021 and officially participated in 2023 and 2024.

As the Black Sea faces Russia and Ukraine among other countries, experts note the possibility that real mines laid by Russia are drifting in the sea.

“As safety was sufficiently secured, there was not any danger,” Nakatani said.

As for why the MSDF’s participation had not been disclosed until then, he said, “We comprehensively considered such points as that ships were not dispatched to participate and only small numbers of personnel took part.”