Updated 12:27 p.m. Moscow Time
MOSCOW, September 9 (RIA Novosti) – More than ten Russian Northern Fleet warships have entered the Barents Sea to perform tactical exercises to include rocket and torpedo launches, the Western Military Region for the Northern Fleet’s press service said Tuesday.
“Over the next few days various forces from the Northern Fleet that include the Admiral Ushakov torpedo boat, the Severomorsk anti-submarine vessel, as well as the Snezhnororsk and Yunga antisubmarine ships will carry out tasks on anti-submarine groupings of ‘enemy ships.’ The sea vessels will be supported by anti-submarine planes and helicopters from the Northern Fleet’s marine aviation,” a statement published by the press service reads.
Exercises will be held until the end of this week and will culminate with a range of rocket and torpedo firings that both surface and submarine vessels will carry out.
During the first part of the drills, a group of minesweepers of the Kolsk Flotilla of Diverse Forces, including Kotelnich, Polyarny and BT-111 minesweepers, ensured security of nuclear and diesel submarines as they entered the sea from the permanent bases, a spokesman for the fleet Vadim Serga said Tuesday.
The crews of the submarines participating in the exercises were tasked with being secretly deployed in the designated areas and attacking a group of above-water forces.
The drills also involve divisions of coastal forces of the Northern Fleet. The Alexander Ostrovsky large amphibious landing ship is to deliver divisions of mobile coastal guided missile systems to the Sredny Peninsula, in the northern part of continental European Russia. The task is to “destroy” a naval grouping, the spokesman said.
