KALININGRAD, January 20. /TASS/. Russian Navy ships and a destroyer of Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force started anti-piracy drills in the Arabian Sea, the press office of Russia’s Baltic Fleet reported on Monday.

"A group of the Baltic Fleet’s ships comprising the guard ship Yaroslav Mudry, the tanker Yelnya and the sea tug Viktor Konetsky has arrived at the designated area of the Arabian Sea for a joint exercise with the destroyer Harusame of Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force," the press office said in a statement.

The Russian Navy ships and the Japanese destroyer will hold communications and maneuvering drills in one of the areas of the Arabian Sea on January 20-21 and practice inspecting and freeing a vessel notionally seized by pirates and landing on the ships’ decks. The Russian Baltic Fleet and the Japanese navy will hold their drills for the first time, the press office stressed.

The Russian and Japanese chiefs of the drills will hold a planning conference aboard the destroyer Harusame in the area of the naval maneuvers today to discuss details of the episodes and the issues of information exchange and security.

After that, the participating ships will hold joint communications, signal exchange and tactical maneuvering drills, including at night. The active phase of the naval maneuvers will take place on January 21.

The guard ship Yaroslav Mudry, the tanker Yelnya and the sea tug Viktor Konetsky embarked on their long-distance deployment from the Baltic Fleet’s main naval base of Baltiysk in the westernmost Kaliningrad Region on October 1 and set off for the Indian Ocean. In December, the warships took part in the naval phase of the Indra-2019 Russian-Indian drills and in the Maritime Security Belt Russia-China-Iran naval maneuvers.