MOSCOW, April 14. /TASS/. Russia’s Pacific Fleet went on heightened alert in a snap combat readiness inspection to practice preventing a notional enemy’s deployment to the southern part of the Sea of Okhotsk, repelling its disembarkation on the Island of Sakhalin and the southern Kuril Islands, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu announced at a meeting with military commanders on Friday.
The inspection commanded by Navy Commander-in-Chief Nikolay Yevmenov will also involve a part of the Russian Aerospace Forces and logistic support units. The drills are aimed at raising the Russian forces’ preparedness for "repelling a potential enemy’s aggression from oceanic and maritime directions" and will also focus on practicing the operations of strategic nuclear-powered missile-carrying submarines.
TASS has put together material on the Pacific Fleet’s snap combat readiness check.
Basic goal
The Pacific Fleet’s forces and capabilities went on alert from 9:00 a.m. Vladivostok time (2:00 a.m. Moscow time) on Friday. The surprise inspection also involves long-range aviation and aircraft of the Eastern Military District and logistic support units and formations.
The primary goal of the drills is "to build up the capabilities of the Armed Forces for coping with the objectives of repelling a potential enemy’s aggression from oceanic and maritime directions," the defense minister said.
"A training situation typical of the period of an imminent aggression threat has been created for the drills," Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov specified.
As the defense chief pointed out, the Pacific Fleet will operate "both in the close-in and distant maritime areas." The troops participating in the drills will accomplish the objectives of repelling massive missile and artillery strikes, hunting down and eliminating a notional enemy’s submarines and wiping out adversary naval strike groups and ground sites.
Three stages
The inspection will run in three stages, the chief of the General Staff explained.
At the first stage, the Pacific Fleet will go on full combat alert while the second stage envisages deploying constant alert forces that will accomplish combat training tasks during the third stage of the drills. The chief of the General Staff did not specify the duration of the three stages.
During the second stage of the drills, after the completion of the procedure for putting the Fleet’s forces on combat alert, constant alert forces will deploy from their bases to combat training areas. In order to build up the air defense system, surface-to-air missile battalions from surface-to-air missile regiments other than on-duty forces will conduct a march to potential missile attack areas and assume combat duty, the chief of the General Staff elaborated.
In order to build up the low-altitude radar field, mobile radar stations will deploy to new site areas, assume combat duty and organize the issuance of radar data to on-duty air defense forces and capabilities, he said.
At the third stage, combat training objectives will be practiced in compliance with the decisions made on the deployment of the Fleet’s forces (troops) and planned measures, Gerasimov said.
Special attention will be paid to ensuring combat sustainability of strategic missile-carrying submarines and their preparedness for employing weapons, he added.
Specifics of Pacific Fleet’s inspection
As the Russian defense chief said, "the inspection will have some specific features."
"It is necessary to practice methods of operations for preventing the enemy deployment to the operationally important area of the Pacific Ocean - the southern part of the Sea of Okhotsk and repelling its disembarkation on the southern Kuril Islands and the Island of Sakhalin," the defense chief said.
The Russian defense minister also said that special attention should be paid to working out measures of counteracting the potential enemy throughout the entire period of the troop inspection.
Also, the Pacific Fleet will "probe the underwater situation at approaches to the Fleet’s bases within short time limits before the force deployments while the basic maneuvers with the participation of warships will run "with the designation of enemy operations and under intense jamming," Shoigu said.