MOSCOW, September 2. /TASS/. Russia’s Pacific Fleet demonstrates high training standards and a strong level of combat readiness, Presidential Aide and chairman of the Maritime Board Nikolay Patrushev stated.
"Russia’s Pacific Fleet demonstrates excellent training and a strong level of combat readiness, as the July Storm exercise showed," Patrushev emphasized in an interview with aif.ru, timed to coincide with the anniversary of the Victory over Japanese Aggression and the end of WWII.
According to him, strengthening defense capabilities in the Far East and a broader maritime buildup in the Pacific are among Russia’s priorities against the backdrop of Japan’s growing militarism.
Patrushev described as timely the decision made by the Soviet Union after the Russian-Japanese War of 1904-1905 to establish the shipbuilding industry in the Far East. "The construction of shipyards in Khabarovsk and Komsomolsk-on-Amur began in the 1930s. As a result, the USSR had developed significant military capabilities and infrastructure in the Far East by the time the military operation started, and the battlegroup that crushed Japanese militarism was formed in no time," he recalled.