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Purveyor

(29,876 posts) Thu Mar 28, 2013, 01:23 PM Mar 2013

Putin Orders Major Unplanned Military Exercises in Black Sea

Source: Maritime Executive

President Vladimir Putin ordered large-scale unplanned exercises in the Black Sea involving 36 warships and close to 7,000 personnel, two months after Russia held its biggest naval maneuvers in the Mediterranean in more than two decades.

Putin issued the order today at 4 a.m. Moscow time on his way back from Durban, South Africa, where he attended a summit of the BRICS emerging-market nations, the president’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on a conference call. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu received the order in a sealed envelope, according to Peskov.

No advance international notification is required for exercises with less than 7,000 personnel, Peskov said. The maneuvers, which will also involve air force, paratroopers, marines and intelligence units, are “in accordance with international laws,” he said.

Russia has used its Black Sea Fleet, based in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol, to deploy warships near the shores of Syria, its Soviet-era ally where it maintains a naval resupply base at the Mediterranean port of Tartus. Syria’s President Bashar al- Assad is battling an insurgency in its third year.

Read more: http://www.maritime-executive.com/article/Putin-Orders-Major-Unplanned-Military-Exercises-in-Black-Sea-2013-03-28/

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Putin Orders Major Unplanned Military Exercises in Black Sea (Original Post) Purveyor Mar 2013 OP

Whenever I read 'Sevastopol' I think of the strategy game, Diplomacy. onehandle Mar 2013 #1

onehandle

(51,122 posts)

1. Whenever I read 'Sevastopol' I think of the strategy game, Diplomacy.

Reply to Purveyor (Original post)

Thu Mar 28, 2013, 01:43 PM

Mar 2013

I rarely see Sevastopol referenced anywhere else.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomacy_(game)

Diplomacy is a strategic board game created by Allan B. Calhamer in 1954 and released commercially in 1959.[1] Its main distinctions from most board wargames are its negotiation phases (players spend much of their time forming and betraying alliances with other players and forming beneficial strategies)[2] and the absence of dice or other game elements that produce random effects. Set in Europe just before the beginning of World War I, Diplomacy is played by two to seven players,[3] each controlling the armed forces of a major European Power (or, with few players, multiple powers). Each player aims to move his or her few starting units—and defeat those of others—to win possession of a majority of strategic cities and provinces marked as "supply centers" on the map; these supply centers allow players who control them to produce more units.

snip...

In its catalog, Avalon Hill advertised Diplomacy as John F. Kennedy[5] and Henry Kissinger's favorite game. Kissinger described it as his favorite in an interview published in a games magazine.[6] American broadcast journalist Walter Cronkite was also reported to be a fan of the game.[7]

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