MURMANSK, June 26. /TASS/. The Northern Fleet’s missile cruiser Marshal Ustinov has taken to the Barents Sea for planned combat training measures, the Fleet’s press office reported on Friday.
"During its deployment to the sea, the cruiser’s crew will practice combat training assignments in interaction with aircraft and helicopters of the Air Force and Air Defense Army, and also with the crews of the Northern Fleet’s other surface ships and submarines," the press office said in a statement.
At various stages of the drills, the missile cruiser will operate in the neutral waters of the Barents and Norwegian seas. At the final stage, the ship will accomplish combat exercises with missile and artillery systems, the press office specified.
During its previous deployments to the sea, the missile cruiser Marshal Ustinov practiced anti-submarine warfare missions and conducted artillery fire against naval targets.
On May 9, the ship’s crew paid tribute to the Northern Fleet sailors who had died fighting for their Motherland during the Soviet Union’s 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany. The crew put a wreath on the water at the entrance to the Kola Bay where the patrol ship Tuman had heroically fallen in battle in 1941, without lowering its naval flag.
The Marshal Ustinov is the Project 1164 missile cruiser. It was laid down at the Nikolayev Shipyard on October 5, 1978 under the name of the Fleet Admiral Lobov and floated out in 1982. The missile cruiser entered service with the Northern Fleet in 1986 under the name of the Marshal Ustinov.
The missile cruiser is armed with 16 launchers of cruise missiles, and also with air defense missile and artillery systems and anti-submarine warfare weapons. The warship underwent its upgrade in Severodvinsk in 2011-2016.