Ukraine and NATO agree on joint exercises in Odesa

Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba and Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs and Security Policy Bettina Cadenbach have finally agreed on the modalities of joint exercises on protecting critical infrastructure in the Black Sea region Coherent Resilience 2020, which will be held in Odesa in October 2020.

 The relevant document was inked on January 15, within the framework of the Deputy Prime Minister’s visit to NATO Headquarters in Brussels.

Exercise Coherent Resilience 2020 will be held in Odesa on October 5-9, 2020. Participants from Ukraine and NATO member countries will work out algorithms of critical situations that may arise in the Black Sea region. The goal is to respond in a coordinated, timely and competent manner to cyber attacks, port attacks, seizure of transport routes and other threats.

"We need more exercises and more joint actions with NATO. Today, we are taking another step in this direction. Exercises are also important for building our system of national resilience in counteracting hybrid threats," Dmytro Kuleba stressed.

In total, more than 200 experts will take part in Coherent Resilience 2020. On the Ukrainian side, there are will be representatives from more than 20 agencies, including the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Ministry’s departments, the Ministry of Energy and the Environmental Protection, the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture, Ministry of Infrastructure, Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports and others. Naftogaz of Ukraine, Institute for Strategic Studies will also take part in the exercises.

Alliance’s representatives are experts of NATO's Centers of Excellence (in particular specialists in energy, cyber security and maritime security), and NATO Delegation in Ukraine. The European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats will also join.

Ukraine and NATO will work out a critical situation that will require concerted action. Throughout the training, the authorities will be able to synchronize their plans, test response and recovery effectiveness, communicate with each other in a timely manner and inform people.

It should be recalled that these are not first joint NATO-Ukraine exercises. In 2017, the Ukrainian authorities together with NATO representatives  worked out cooperation on critical energy infrastructure protection.

Background

Critical infrastructure objects - enterprises and institutions (regardless of ownership) of such sectors as energy, chemical industry, transport, banks and finance, information technology and telecommunications (electronic communications), food, health care, public utilities strategically important for the functioning of the economy and security of the state, society and the population, failure or destruction of which can have an impact on national security and defense, the natural environment, lead to significant material and and financial losses, loss of life.