Roughly 400 Marines with the Black Sea Rotational Force recently wrapped up a two-week exercise in Romania, where they showed mud cannot stop motivated grunts.
"The terrain at Smardan Training Area was perfect for testing the Marines ability to maneuver; both mounted and dismounted, over muddy, unforgiving terrain," said 2nd Lt. Zackary R. Buckon, a spokesman for the rotational force.
Exercise Platinum Eagle ended on March 1. The Marines trained at the small-unit level with troops from Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Macedonia, Buckon said. They maneuvered up the range, using combined arms tactics to "combat a variety of enemy situations," he said.
Since 2015, Marines have rotated through Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base in Romania, in part a response to Russia's annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine.
In August, Marines and sailors with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit practiced amphibious operations with the Ukrainians as part of the annual Sea Breeze exercise. Although the Russians were interested in the exercise, they did not take any provocative actions, said Navy Capt. Byron Ogden, commodore for Amphibious Squadron Six.
"All of the interactions that they had were safe and professional, from my recollection," Ogden told reporters on Thursday. "There was nothing that drew unnecessary attention to give us any pause. There were some other interactions with some other vessels shortly around that time. We were concerned about it going up there, but we never had one of the low flybys by an SU-24 or anything like that."
