Enlarge image
Frigate »Mecklenburg-West Pomerania«
Photo: Hauke Christian Dittrich / dpa
The German frigate »Mecklenburg-Vorpommern« left Wilhelmshaven on Thursday to help secure NATO's northern flank.
The warship is also to become part of the military alliance's rapid reaction force in the coming months, according to the naval command.
Around 220 soldiers, including crew members from Slovakia, are on board the almost 140-meter-long frigate.
This also includes a medical specialist group and naval aviation with two on-board helicopters.
"Following an interim repair, the ship and the crew have now completed a good nine months of operational training with a clear focus on national and alliance defense tasks," said Commander Hendrik Wißler, according to a Navy statement.
The task now is to bring these skills to bear as part of NATO's rapid reaction force, to demonstrate operational readiness and thus contribute to the defense of the alliance, the commander explained.
The frigate left port in the morning.
The Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Defense, Siemtje Möller (SPD), and her Slovakian colleague Marian Majer came to the base to say goodbye.
Families and friends of the crew, as well as a naval band, also attended.
The Bundeswehr did not name the exact location - in general, the sea area of NATO's northern flank extends over the Baltic Sea, the North Sea and the North Atlantic.
At the end of February, shortly after the start of the Russian attack on Ukraine, several German naval ships were dispatched from Kiel to the Baltic Sea.
According to current planning, the »Mecklenburg-Vorpommern« is expected to return to Wilhelmshaven in July.
"You can't switch off, it just doesn't stop"
Meanwhile, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz explained that thoughts of the war in Ukraine will haunt him well beyond his working day.
"You can't switch off, it doesn't just stop," said the SPD politician on Thursday at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Like millions of other people in Europe and the world, this worries him every day.
“Also the question of whether a war is about to break out that will go beyond the current war in Ukraine.”
The images and the suffering in the country, which has been resisting a Russian attack for more than three months, are terrible.
"And I don't think that the horror of this and the concern associated with it should be dismissed," said the Chancellor.
"It must be an incentive every day that we do everything to end this terrible war as quickly as possible."
dop/dpa