MOSCOW, May 16. /TASS/. Russian Pacific Fleet ships practiced fighting a notional enemy’s naval drones and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) during drills in the Peter the Great Bay off Russia’s Pacific coast, the Fleet’s press office reported on Thursday.

"Over 15 Pacific Fleet ships and gunboats participated in the drills of fighting seaborne drones and unmanned aerial vehicles," the press office said in a statement.

During the drills, the crews of combat ships accomplished a set of combat training exercises to detect, identify and strike targets simulating small-size naval and aerial targets, it specified.

In the designated water areas, Pacific Fleet sailors practiced a target distribution algorithm, after which they successfully destroyed all of the simulated enemy’s seaborne and airborne small-size targets. During the drills, the naval personnel fired heavy Kord and DShK machine guns along with shipborne AK-630 and AK-630M surface-to-air artillery systems, the press office reported.

The naval exercise to fight the notional enemy’s seaborne drones and unmanned aerial vehicles involved the corvettes Sovershenny, Gromky and Rezky, the large anti-submarine warfare ship Admiral Panteleyev, large amphibious assault ships, small anti-submarine warfare ships, coastal minesweepers and missile boats. The drills also involved ships and gunboats of the FSB (Federal Security Service) Border Guard branch for the Primorye Region, it specified.

An experimental unmanned aerial vehicle of the Pacific Fleet’s naval aviation capable of taking off and landing on a ship helicopter deck simulated the notional enemy’s UAV during the drills, the press office reported.