"Recognising submarine rescue as a humanitarian rather than a military endeavour, the Russian Federation Navy and its NATO counterparts have slowly but surely established a meaningful dialogue to share submarine rescue information and build up mutual trust and confidence. The culmination of this process came in May 2008 when units from Russia's Northern Fleet joined 13 other navies, and observers from a further 10 nations, in the Skagerrak to participate in Exercise 'Bold Monarch 2008' (BMH 08), a NATO-organised exercise designed to rehearse and test procedures for rescuing sailors from a distressed submarine (DISSUB) stranded on the seabed."