Türkiye Launches Denizkurdu-II Naval Drill Across Four Seas
By Bosphorus News Geopolitics Desk
Türkiye will launch Denizkurdu-II/2026 on June 4 across the Black Sea, Marmara, the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean, with the Turkish Navy preparing its first combined firing package of eight guided missiles and one torpedo in a single drill.
The exercise will run until June 14 under the command of the Turkish Naval Forces. It will involve 125 naval elements, 60 aircraft and 18,000 personnel from the Land, Naval and Air Forces, as well as the Gendarmerie, Coast Guard and Special Forces. AFAD, the Directorate General of Maritime Affairs and the Turkish Red Crescent will also take part.
Rear Admiral Alper Doğukanlı, the exercise operations chief, briefed the press at the Naval War Centre Command in Gölcük, Kocaeli, where the Navy laid out the exercise schedule and live-fire programme.
The first phase, from June 4 to June 6, will focus on operational preparation and live weapons training. From June 7 to June 10, the exercise will move into operations in a multi-threat environment. A Distinguished Observer Day will be held in the Gulf of Antalya on June 11, followed by port visits from June 12 to June 14.
Those port visits will include 32 ships calling at 18 ports across the Black Sea, the Aegean, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, giving the exercise a visible maritime diplomacy layer after the live-fire phase.
The strongest military signal comes from the weapons package planned for the Distinguished Observer Day. Turkish officials said the exercise will include, for the first time in a single drill, the firing of eight guided missiles and one torpedo.
The planned firings include an AKYA heavyweight torpedo from a submarine at a range of 10 kilometres, an ATMACA anti-ship missile from a surface vessel at a range of 102 kilometres, a HİSAR-D missile from the MİDLAS national vertical launch system, and a RAM missile.
Naval helicopters will fire PENGUIN and TEMREN guided missiles and conduct a training torpedo firing. Bayraktar TB3 UCAVs taking off from TCG Anadolu will fire MAM-L and MAM-T munitions, bringing the TCG Anadolu-Bayraktar TB3 pairing back into Türkiye's naval strike architecture.
Türkiye had already placed the TCG Anadolu-TB3 pairing at the heart of its naval strike messaging during Mavi Vatan-2026, a capability track Bosphorus News examined through the TB3 naval strike angle.
Denizkurdu-II/2026 now gives that track a wider operational frame. The exercise links surface warfare, submarine activity, naval aviation, vertical launch systems, helicopter-fired missiles and carrier-based unmanned airpower inside a single multi-sea scenario.
Compared with Denizkurdu-I/2025, which involved 78 surface ships, six submarines and 50 aircraft, this year's Denizkurdu-II/2026 expands the visible scale to 125 naval elements and 60 aircraft.
That growth sits inside a broader fleet-expansion programme, with Ankara's shipbuilding plans and Blue Homeland-linked naval buildup already placing dozens of new platforms in the pipeline, as Bosphorus News examined in its report on Türkiye's 50-warship naval buildup.
The timing will be watched in Athens and Nicosia, where Turkish maritime jurisdiction debates and Blue Homeland-related legislation have already drawn close attention. As of June 3, the draft maritime law had not been submitted to the Turkish parliament.
The exercise also carries a civil maritime dimension. Türkiye's maritime authorities have activated coordination measures for the drill period, including the Deniz Ulaştırması Kontrol Merkezi, reflecting the need to manage military activity alongside commercial routes in the Black Sea and surrounding waters.
The drill places missile firing, torpedo launch, naval aviation, carrier-based unmanned airpower and civil maritime coordination inside the same operational calendar, making Denizkurdu-II/2026 a key marker in Türkiye's 2026 naval activity.