MOSCOW, July 30. /TASS/. The Northern Fleet’s forces have deployed to the Barents Sea in the Russian Navy’s massive drills, the Fleet’s press office reported on Tuesday.

"The Northern Fleet has deployed forces to combat training ranges to accomplish combat exercises as part of the Russian Navy’s large-scale drills that began the other day in the responsibility areas of the Northern, Pacific and Baltic Fleets and the Caspian Flotilla," the press office said in a statement.

The missile cruiser Marshal Ustinov designated the deployment of the Northern Fleet’s naval strike group. After exiting the Kola Bay, its crew held shipboard air defense drills and an exercise to inflict damage on a notional enemy’s naval group. Multipurpose submarines also stealthily deployed to designated areas to counter the Fleet’s naval taskforces under the scenario of the drills, it said.

The coastal minesweepers Kolomna and Solovetsky Yunga were the first to deploy to the Barents Sea as part of a minesweeping group. After exiting the Severomorsk roadstead, the crews of the minesweepers began searching for mines to ensure the safe deployment of the Fleet’s all-arms forces. The small anti-submarine warfare ships Brest and Snezhnogorsk were next for deployment as part of a hunter-killer group, sailing from the Kola Bay to the Barents Sea, the press office said.

At naval combat training ranges, the crews of the anti-submarine ships began accomplishing the assigned missions of hunting down the notional enemy’s submarines. Multipurpose submarines also sailed to combat training ranges to accomplish the assigned missions of stealthily deploying to the designated areas and countering the Fleet’s forces, it said.

In the process of the drills, the Northern Fleet’s sailors performed several dozen combat training exercises. The crews of the minesweepers struck mockup floating mines by shipborne artillery guns. The crews of the small anti-submarine warfare ships conducted surface-to-air firings against simulated aerial targets and artillery firings against sea targets, and employed anti-submarine weapons against a simulated submerged target by computer-modelling methods, it specified.

Ships and vessels of Russia’s Arctic expeditionary force will soon join the Northern Fleet’s all-arms grouping to accomplish combat training objectives at sea, the press office said.