MOSCOW, August 21 (RIA Novosti) - Russian Pacific Fleet Antisubmarine forces detected and stopped a foreign submarine near the Russian-Japanese maritime boundary, Kommersant reported Thursday.
“A foreign submarine was discovered in the north of the La Perouse Strait, where the Russian-Japanese border is. … After some time, the submarine quickly left the border area, having gone deep into neutral waters,” a high-ranking official from the General Staff of the Armed Forces told the Kommersant newspaper.
As soon as the submarine was detected on Wednesday, a number of ships and naval aviation units headed toward it for monitoring purposes. According to newspaper’s source, preliminary reports show the foreign vessel to be a Japanese Oyashio-class submarine. All information was immediately passed on to General Staff chief Valery Gerasimov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
The Japanese Embassy in Russia failed to comment on the situation by the time of publishing, the newspaper wrote.
A similar incident took place on August 7, when Northern Fleet antisubmarine forces detected and forced away a Virginia-class US submarine in the Barents Sea.
