MURMANSK, May 29. /TASS/. The Northern Fleet’s anti-submarine warfare ships practiced hunting down and destroying a notional enemy’s submarines during drills in the Barents Sea, the Fleet’s press office reported on Monday.

"A formation of anti-submarine ships from the Kola Flotilla of the Northern Fleet’s Combined Arms Forces employed anti-submarine warfare armaments in the Barents Sea during a scheduled tactical exercise. The ships’ combat teams practiced the objectives of hunting down and tracking a submerged enemy and conducted fire by a practice (training) torpedo against a simulated underwater target," the press office said in a statement.

The drills were held in a force-on-force format. One party involved a naval strike force comprising the large anti-submarine warfare ships Severomorsk, Vice Admiral Kulakov and Admiral Levchenko and the other party was made up of a nuclear-powered submarine and a diesel sub, it said.

"The firing passed successfully and the submerged enemy was notionally destroyed. After the firing, the surfaced torpedoes were found and retrieved from the water by a torpedo recovery boat, which provided support for the exercise," the Fleet’s press office added.

During the practical stage of the exercise, the crew of the large anti-submarine warfare ship Vice Admiral Kulakov conducted fire by the Rastrub-B shipborne anti-submarine missile system, it said.