MOSCOW, June 4. /TASS/. Russia’s Northern Fleet has started exercises involving two large anti-submarine ships and two nuclear-powered submarines in the Barents Sea, the fleet said in a statement.
"Today, as part of combat training activities of the summer training period, Northern Fleet forces began a scheduled anti-submarine exercise in the Barents Sea. The large anti-submarine ships Admiral Levchenko and Rear Admiral Kulakov left the Northern Fleet’s main base in Severomorsk to the designated areas as part of a naval search and strike group," the statement said.
As part of the exercise, the naval search and strike group will rehearse various elements of anti-submarine missions of the combat training course, including the organization of submarine search and tracking in cooperation with a submarine crew and anti-submarine aircraft. Two nuclear-powered submarines of the Northern Fleet are taking part in the exercise. One of them - a multi-purpose submarine - will act together with the naval search and strike group, and the second one will pose as the notional enemy.
At the final stage of the exercise, the crews of the anti-submarine ships will perform combat exercises using anti-submarine weapons.
Project 1155 large anti-submarine ships are armed with anti-submarine missile systems, rocket launchers, torpedo launchers and other types of artillery and missile weapons. In recent years large anti-submarine ships of the Northern Fleet have been often sent on long-range voyages in the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, as well as on missions to defend Russia's national interests in the Arctic. A program is underway to upgrade project 1155 large anti-submarine ships into attack frigates by arming them with the Kalibr-NK missile system.