MOSCOW, April 14. /TASS/. The Pacific Fleet’s coastal defense troops and marine infantry units have gone on alert in a surprise combat readiness check and are conducting marches to their amassment areas, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Friday.
"Military units and formations of coastal defense troops and marine infantry from the Pacific Fleet have gone on heightened alert in a surprise inspection. As part of the inspection, the marine corps forces have put the personnel on alert, prepared equipment for a march and the troop departure aboard military hardware to the designated sites for further transition to the area of the drills," the ministry said in a statement.
The Pacific Fleet’s coastal defense troops are conducting their marches to amassment areas to a distance of over 200 km, it said.
"During the marches, the troops are practicing providing military convoy security, overcoming contaminated terrain and repelling attacks by a notional enemy’s subversive/reconnaissance groups and air strikes," the statement reads.
All of the Pacific Fleet’s forces went on heightened alert on April 14 in a surprise combat readiness check. The naval sailors will exercise to prevent a potential enemy’s penetration into the southern part of the Sea of Okhotsk, repel the disembarkation of an adversary force on the Island of Sakhalin and the southern Kuril Islands, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said earlier on Friday.
The sudden combat readiness inspection commanded by Russian Navy Commander-in-Chief Nikolay Yevmenov will also involve some units of the Aerospace Forces. The sweeping drills are aimed at raising the preparedness of the Russian forces for "repelling a potential enemy’s aggression from oceanic and maritime directions." The exercise will also focus on operations by strategic nuclear-powered missile-carrying submarines.