SEVASTOPOL, October 7. /TASS/. A detachment of ships and submarines belonging to the Pacific Fleet, performing a transition from the Baltic to places of permanent deployment, has entered the Indian Ocean, a source close to Crimea’s security forces reported on Thursday.

"After crossing the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and passing the Gulf of Aden, a detachment of ships and submarines of the Pacific Fleet led by the corvette Gremyashchiy is now sailing in the Indian Ocean," the source said. The Pacific Fleet’s corvettes and submarines are being escorted by the Captain Guryev rescue tugboat of the Black Sea Fleet.

TASS has no official confirmation of this information.

The Gremyashchiy is the Project 20385 lead corvette laid down at the Severnaya Shipyard (a part of the United Shipbuilding Corporation) on February 1, 2012 and floated out in June 2017, and transferred to the Navy on December 29, 2020. The Gremyashchiy entered the inter-fleet transition in August as part of a detachment of ships led by the large anti-submarine ship Vice-Admiral Kulakov of the Northern Fleet. The latter became part of the Mediterranean Squadron of the Russian Navy later.

The detachment includes the diesel-electric submarines Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and Volkhov of modified Project 636.3 of the JSC Admiralty Shipyards (a part of the United Shipbuilding Corporation). They arrived in the Mediterranean in early August. The Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky submarine is the first in a series of six submarines of Project 636.3 designed for the Pacific Fleet. It was laid down on July 28, 2017, floated out on March 28, 2019, and transferred to the Navy on November 25, 2019. The Volkhov submarine was laid down on July 28, 2017, floated out on December 26, 2019, and transferred to the Navy on October 24, 2020.

The Pacific Fleet’s corvettes and submarines are carriers of Kalibr-NK/PL cruise missiles. They can launch up to 20 missiles of this type, in one salvo.