VLADIVOSTOK, December 25. /TASS/. The Russian Navy’s St. Andrew flag was hoisted Friday on the corvette of project 20380 Hero of the Russian Federation Aldar Tsydenzhapov, built at the Amur Shipbuilding Plant. From this moment on the ship is an organic unit of the Pacific Fleet. The special ceremony was attended by Aldar Tsydenzhapov’s parents, who arrived from Buryatiya to Vladivostok on a special flight, the Pacific Fleet’s press-service told TASS.

"On the basis of an order issued by the Navy’s commander-in-chief the ship was included in the list of the Pacific Fleet’s combat ships," the news release says. The corvette was named after 19-year-old sailor Aldar Tsydenzhapov, who in September 2010 at the cost of his life stopped a fire in the engine room of the Pacific Fleet’s destroyer The Bystryi. He was posthumously awarded the title of the Hero of Russia.

"After the transfer and acceptance act was signed, the St. Andrew flag was hoisted on the corvette. The inauguration ceremony was attended by the Pacific Fleet’s Commander Sergey Avakyants, the Primorye Region’s governor Oleg Kozhemyako, delegates from the Amur Shipbuilding Plant and Tsydenzhapov’s parents and other relatives," the press-service said.

Avakyants addressed those present with a reminder of Aldar Tsydenzhapov’s heroic deed, honored the young soldier’s parents and asked the ship’s crew to be worthy of their predecessor.

On July 16, the corvette was brought from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to Vladivostok. A dozen sea trials followed for testing its systems, mechanisms and weapons, including the universal shipborne 100mm artillery unit A-190 and six-barrel artillery piece AK-630. The ship destroyed a cruise missile and coastal targets simulating the hypothetical enemy’s equipment and fortifications and hit a towed target. An anti-ship cruise missile was launched with the shipborne system Uran against a surface target. The crew practiced electronic jamming and tested an onboard aviation complex.

The keel-laying ceremony for corvette The Aldar Tsydenzhapov (project 20380), a third in a series of multirole corvettes being built in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, took place on July 22, 2015. The ship’s displacement is 2,200 tonnes, speed - 27 knots and endurance up to 4,000 miles.