MOSCOW, June 10. /TASS/. The air defense teams of the Northern Fleet’s naval taskforce shot down all the cruise missiles launched against it during the drills in the Barents Sea for defending the country’s Arctic frontiers, the Fleet’s press office reported on Thursday.

"Overall, eight target missiles were launched towards the naval strike group, which were successfully shot down by the missile cruisers’ AK-130 and AK-630 artillery systems, Kinzhal and Osa-MA surface-to-air missile launchers," the press office said in a statement.

The naval hunter-killer force comprising the small anti-submarine warfare ships Brest and Snezhnogorsk also conducted fire to strike aerial targets, the statement says.

"This is one of the most complex practical episodes of combat training for the surface ships’ crews in the air defense of a naval taskforce, employing combat artillery and anti-aircraft missile armaments against actual air targets simulated by Saman small-size solid-propellant missiles," the press office specified.

The drills for defending the Russian Arctic frontiers from sea threats involve the heavy nuclear-powered missile cruiser Pyotr Veliky and the missile cruiser Marshal Ustinov and also over 20 combat ships and submarines and around 10 planes and helicopters.