MOSCOW, September 2. /TASS/. The Pacific Fleet’s naval groups hit all the targets during missile and artillery firings in the Vostok 2022 strategic command and staff drills, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Friday.
"The Pacific Fleet’s naval groups successfully accomplished missile and artillery firings against aerial targets during a tactical air defense exercise in the Vostok 2022 strategic command and staff drills," the ministry said in a statement.
Specifically, the small anti-submarine warfare ships Sovetskaya Gavan and Koreyets, four missile gunboats and a naval minesweeper group comprising the harbor minesweepers BT-100 and BT-325 practiced the joint use of air defense systems, accomplishing surface-to-air missile and artillery firings, the ministry specified.
"Il-38 aircraft of the Pacific Fleet’s naval aviation dropped small-size aerial targets at a planned distance from the naval group, which were destroyed by a pair of the small anti-submarine warfare ships Sovetskaya Gavan and Koreyets, which employed Osa surface-to-air and Igla man-portable air defense systems. For their part, the missile gunboats and harbor minesweepers employed artillery systems against aerial targets," the statement reads.
The drills took place at a naval range in the Sea of Japan. "All the targets were successfully destroyed," the ministry said.
Vostok 2022 strategic drills
The Vostok 2022 strategic command and staff drills are running on September 1-7 under the command of Chief of Russia’s General Staff Valery Gerasimov to practice defensive and offensive operations at the Burduny, Goryachiye Klyuchi, Knyaze-Volkonsky, Lagunnoye, Sergeyevsky, Telemba and Uspenovsky training grounds of the Eastern Military District and in maritime and coastal areas of the Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan.
Along with the troops of Russia’s Eastern Military District, Airborne Force units, long-range and military transport aircraft, joint operations during the Vostok 2022 strategic drills will be practiced by military contingents and observers from member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and other partner states, including Azerbaijan, Algeria, Armenia, Belarus, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Laos, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Syria and Tajikistan.
In all, the Vostok 2022 strategic maneuvers will bring together over 50,000 troops and more than 5,000 items of armaments and military hardware, in particular, 140 aircraft, 60 combat ships, gunboats and support vessels.