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Russian Navy nuclear-powered sub eliminates enemy submarine in Barents Sea drills

The exercise was held without actually employing the torpedo ammunition load, the Northern Fleet’s press office specified

MURMANSK, October 9. /TASS/. The Northern Fleet’s nuclear-powered submarine Oryol searched for and eliminated a notional enemy’s sub during drills in the Barents Sea, the Fleet’s press office reported on Friday.

"The crew of the nuclear-powered missile-carrying submarine Oryol practiced anti-submarine warfare tasks at combat training naval ranges in the Barents Sea," the press office said in a statement.

"The submariners held a tactical exercise to search for and notionally eliminate an enemy submarine in the close-in maritime zone. The crew of a nuclear-powered submarine from a submarine force unit of the Northern Fleet simulated the enemy in the drills," the statement reads.

The naval sailors practiced underwater maneuvering and sonars’ employment in the active search mode, the crew’s combat preparedness and the algorithm of measures upon detecting and attacking an underwater enemy. The drills were held without actually employing the torpedo ammunition load, the press office specified.

The sub’s crew earlier practiced mine countermeasures jointly with the minesweepers of the Kola Flotilla of All-Arms Forces and accomplished the assignments of the submarine combat training course at sea in the surface and submerged positions, the statement runs.

The third-generation nuclear-powered submarine K-266 ‘Oryol’ (Project 949A ‘Antey’) was laid down on January 19, 1989 at the Sevmash Shipyard in Severodvinsk in Russia’s northwest under factory No. 650. The sub was put on the list of the Soviet Navy’s warships on January 15, 1990. The sub was named Severodvinsk in 1991.

The submarine was floated out on May 22, 1992 and made operational on December 30 that year. The Russian Navy’s flag was raised on the vessel on January 20, 1993 and the sub was named Oryol in April 1993.