Royal Malaysian Navy Frigate KD Lekiu (FFG30) to Join Indian Navy Led Naval Exercise

According to information published by the Indian Navy on February 26, 2022, guided-missile frigate, KD Lekiu (FFG30) and a delegation of the Royal Malaysian Navy arrived at the Indian city of Visakhapatnam to attend the multilateral naval exercise MILAN 2022 at the invitation of the Indian Navy. Indian Navy closely cooperates with the Royal Malaysian Navy on various issues, which include bilateral exercise Samudra Lakshmana, training exchanges, and regular participation in LIMA Sea Exercise.

MILAN is a biennial multilateral naval exercise incepted by the Indian Navy in 1995 at Andaman and Nicobar Command. Since its inception, the event has been held biennially except for 2001, 2005, 2016, and 2020. While the 2001 and 2016 editions were not held due to International Fleet Reviews, the 2005 editions were rescheduled to 2006 due to the 2004 Tsunami. 2020 edition of MILAN was postponed to 2022 due to COVID-19. The aim of the exercise is to hone operational skills and enable doctrinal learning in the maritime domain, through professional interaction between friendly navies.

MILAN 22 is being conducted over a duration of 9 days in two phases with the harbour phase scheduled from 25 to 28 February and Sea Phase from 01 to 04 March. India is celebrating the 75th year of its independence in 2022, and MILAN 22 provides an opportunity to commemorate this milestone with Indian Navy friends and partners. The theme of the MILAN 2022 exercise is ‘Camaraderie – Cohesion – Collaboration’ which aims to project India as a responsible maritime power to the world at large.

KD Lekiu is a Lekiu-class guided missile frigate currently serving in the Royal Malaysian Navy and one of the major naval assets for Malaysia. Together with her sister ship Jebat, Lekiu serves in the 23rd Frigate Squadron of the Royal Malaysian Navy. As for the weapon systems, Lekiu equipped with one Bofors 57 mm gun and two MSI DS30M 30 mm cannon. For the missiles, there was 16 Sea Wolf surface-to-air missile for air defence and 8 MM40 Exocet block 2 anti-ship missile for anti surface warfare. Two triple Eurotorp B515 with A244-S ASW torpedoes also installed for anti submarine warfare.