MOSCOW, December 16. /TASS/. The missile corvette Vyshny Volochyok simulated an enemy warship during a force-on-force exercise with Bastion coastal defense missile systems and Su-24M and Su-27 aircraft of the Black Sea Fleet’s naval aviation and the Southern Military District, the Fleet’s press office reported on Monday.
"Under the drills’ scenario, the crews of four Su-24M aircraft and a pair of Su-27 planes from the Black Sea Fleet’s naval aviation and the Southern Military District’s Air Force and Air Defense Army, and also the team of the Bastion coastal defense missile system were assigned the task of detecting and notionally striking the ‘enemy’ warship with the missile armament," the press office said in a statement.
The crew of the Vyshny Volochyok was tasked with repelling the strike on the ship and destroying a ground military infrastructure facility by a retaliatory strike with Kalibr cruise missiles, the statement says.
"The training battle was held with electronic missile launches, as a result of which the ship crew’s strike against the ground target was foiled," according to the statement.
The analysis of the drills has shown that the Black Sea Fleet is capable of effectively fighting modern types of a notional enemy’s armament, in particular, cruise missiles targeting facilities on the ground, the press office reported.
Russia’s National Defense Control Center reported on December 15 that the Black Sea Fleet had started tracking the US Navy’s guided-missile destroyer Ross that had entered the western portion of the Black Sea. The National Defense Control Center said that the missile corvette Vyshny Volochyok was tracking the US warship’s movements.
The Vyshny Volochyok is the sixth warship of the upgraded Buyan-M series of Project 21631. It has a larger displacement and operates the universal Kalibr-NK missile system designed to strike both naval and coastal targets.