Reuters
NATO on Friday launched one of its biggest naval deployments since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, with French aircraft carrier the Charles de Gaulle under the command of the alliance for the first time. The carrier and its accompanying vessels, known as a carrier strike group, are the centrepiece of Neptune Strike, a series of drills that NATO says will help its members learn to work more seamlessly together and deter its enemies. Placing the Charles de Gaulle under NATO operational control for the first time is highly symbolic, not least because the warship is named after the former president who took France out of the alliance’s U.S.-led command structure in 1966.