Here’s What that US Destroyer Was Doing On Russia’s Coast When it Got Buzzed by Russian Jets

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Here’s What that US Destroyer Was Doing On Russia’s Coast When it Got Buzzed by Russian Jets

What The USS Donald Cook and The Polish Navy Were Doing Off Kaliningrad When They Were Buzzed by The Russian Airforce

Originally appeared at Dances with Bears
The confrontation last week between Russian aircraft and a US-Polish naval operation in the Baltic Sea, within shooting distance of Kaliningrad, was a long anticipated and professionally executed exercise by the military commanders of all three countries. “Unprofessional”, as Admiral Mark Ferguson commanding US Naval Forces in Europe called it, was the very least thing it was. But who provoked, who feinted, who attacked first, and who defended are questions the publicity that has followed is meant to obscure.

One outcome that was not anticipated by either the attackers or defenders has begun to materialize in Warsaw. There, the rhetoric of military buildup along Poland’s eastern frontier has run into the cold calculation that Poland’s survival chances aren’t likely to be much better than those of the USS Donald Cook, if there had been a real firefight, Turkish style.

The US destroyer Donald Cook is armed with the Aegis combat system, a combination of missiles intended to attack Russian nuclear, as well as non-nuclear missile batteries on land, sea, and in the air. The ship is normally docked at the NATO base at Rota, Spain. Between April 8 and 11, it was at the Polish port of Gdynia. The US Navy press reported the port call as part of the vessel’s “fourth forward-deployed patrol in support of ballistic missile defense of Europe…Such port visits serve to enhance U.S.-Polish relations as the two nations work together for a stable, secure and prosperous region.”
The Donald Cook departed from Gdynia on April 11 and sailed northeast to Klaipeda, Lithuania, where it made port on the morning of April 14. There isn’t a ferry between the two ports. Driving on land the long way around the Russian territory of Kaliningrad takes 8 hours. If there were a direct ferry, it would take no more than 6 hours. The US Navy destroyer took more than three days.

In the interval, steaming very slowly, the Donald Cook conducted exercises with SH-2G Super Seasprite helicopter units of the Polish Navy. At a distance of about 70 kilometres offshore from Kaliningrad and the Russian missile, naval and air base complex around Baltysk, the US-Polish operations were shadowed by units of the Russian Navy and Air Force. According to the US Navy version, in the mid-afternoon of April 11 the “Donald Cook was conducting deck landing drills with an Allied military helicopter when two Russian SU-24 jets made numerous, close-range and low altitude passes”.

After suspending the Polish helicopter landings for a time, the operation reportedly resumed. The next day, April 12, the US Navy says “a Russian KA-27 Helix helicopter conducted circles at low altitude around the ship, seven in total, at approximately 5 p.m. local. The helicopter passes were also deemed unsafe and unprofessional by the ship’s commanding officer. About 40 minutes following the interaction with the Russian helicopter, two Russian SU-24 jets made numerous close-range and low altitude passes, 11 in total. The Russian aircraft flew in a simulated attack profile and failed to respond to repeated safety advisories in both English and Russian.”

The last pass was videotaped onboard, and the images published to the world by the Pentagon (lead image). By ignoring two days of more than 20 Russian aircraft sorties around the Donald Cook, it has been made to appear the two Su-24s were simulating a strafing attack. Subsequently, Secretary of State John Kerry announced: “It’s unprofessional and under the rules of engagement that could have been a shot down, so people need to understand that this is serious business and the United States is not going to be intimidated in high seas. We respect our freedom of navigation … and we are communicating to the Russians how dangerous this is.”

What actually had happened has been more precisely reported in the Polish press. There it has been revealed that the Russian aircraft were not armed with ordnance, but with electronic countermeasures pods designed for jamming hostile gunnery and missile targeting systems. If the commanders and their signals staff on board the Donald Cook were not themselves confused or jammed, they knew that the final two passes, after the nine earlier ones that afternoon, was anything but an attack simulation.
Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36050689
The Polish state radio also reported the Ministry of Defence in Warsaw as claiming the joint US-Polish operation “will be practising take-offs and landings from the deck of the ship.” This, Polish defence reports say, was false. According to the Polish sources, the 20-year old helicopters have performed several thousand landings and takeoffs on Polish vessels at sea. The Polish state media have also reported that after the suspension of the April 11 operation, the buzzing the next day put a stop to the operation altogether. If true, the Su-24 “attack” achieved its purpose.

But what was the US and Polish purpose, and why were so many warnings issued by the Russian side, and ignored by the US and Polish commanders?

It was almost exactly two years ago that the USS Donald Cook was buzzed by a pair of Su-24s in the Black Sea. On that occasion the Russian aircraft made their passes at a slightly higher altitude. They too were equipped with electronic signal jammers. The operations were reported by the Russian side at the time as defensive of shore installations on Crimea and the mainland. In the Russian interpretation, each of the Donald Cook’s “forward deployed patrols” is an operation aimed at Russian naval and shore defences, and at Russia’s long-range nuclear missile deployments which are targeted at western Europe and the US. These include the mobile S-400s, nuclear armed, which have been reported to be moving in and out of Kaliningrad. As analysed here, “nothing an Aegis-armed missile battery does within range of Russia can be routine at any time.”

As a forward deployment of an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system, the Donald Cook’s port-call in Poland, and its subsequent cruise across the Baltic to Lithuania, make, for the Russian side, a US violation of Article XIV of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 2010. For the treaty wording, click to open. For an early assessment by the US Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists of how the two sides regard the US Navy’s Aegis deployments in the Black and Baltic Seas, read this. For a summary of Russian military interpretations of the Aegis deployments, before the start of the US campaigns on the Ukraine and Syrian fronts, read this……more here

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Here’s What that US Destroyer Was Doing On Russia’s Coast When it Got Buzzed by Russian Jets