The Allied frontline base on the Black Sea, just over a hundred kilometers from the borders of Romanian airspace, in front of Sevastopol. Italy has just ceded command to the United Kingdom but has weathered the most pivotal four months in recent European history
Costanza, from our correspondent American, British, Italian and Romanian jets suddenly appear in a diamond shape on the heads of the delegations. It is a sign of strength and unity, says the master of ceremonies. The NATO frontline base on the Black Sea, just over a hundred kilometers from the borders of Romanian airspace, off Sevastopol, is dedicated to a former Romanian prime minister, the liberal Mihail Kogălniceanu. It is the place from which the fighter planes that control the Alliance’s borders depart. Yesterday command of this NATO mission was handed over from Italy to the UK with a brief and operational ceremony at the airline, but the Italians are not leaving. After leading the mission for the past four months that has shocked Europe, the Italian Air Force’s “Black Storm task force, made up of about two hundred people, continues to “perform active surveillance to ensure the safety of the spaceplane and protect them our limits, says Air Force Chief of Staff Luca Goretti. “Putin’s war machine is a threat to our freedom,” said British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace during the ceremony, “but we have something that Putin doesn’t have. We have friends and allies. We are thirty, Putin is alone. It’s our values that make us better than him.” Politicians in Brussels will soon decide whether this will also be the headquarters of one of the four new battlegroups that NATO has set up on the “eastern flank” of the alliance.
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