KYIV. April 10 (Interfax-AVN) - Officials of the Bulgarian, Greek, Italian, Turkish, Ukrainian and U.S. Navies are participating in the general conference on planning the Breeze 2003 multinational naval exercise in the Bulgarian city of Varna, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry press service reported on Wednesday.
"The officials are to determine the list of personnel, forces and assets to be involved in the maneuvers, but the final results of the discussion will be summed up at the final conference that is to take place in Varna in May this year," the press service said.
The Breeze 2003 is planned to happen in Bulgarian territorial waters in July, and its participants will practice interaction between navies of the NATO member and partners in a peacekeeping operation.
During the maneuvers, military sailors will practice a number of missions aimed at guiding a naval caravan with humanitarian cargo, anti-missile and anti-submarine defense, search for and rescue of a surface vessel in distress, and artillery firing.
Breeze 2003 will be supervised by Bulgarian Navy Command HQ Rear Admiral Neiko Atanasov.
The Ukrainian Navy will be represented at the war games by the Vinnytsia corvette.