CAM RANH, June 17. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia’s Pacific Fleet convoy, which was on a combat mission in the Indian Ocean, arrived at the naval base Cam Ranh in thr central Vietnamese province of Khanh Hoa on Tuesday. The mission of the naval convoy, including big anti-submarine ship Marshal Shaposhnikov, middle-sized sea-going tanker Irkut and rescue vessel Alatau is to build up naval cooperation with Vietnam, replenish food, drinking water stocks and to provide for leisure of sailors.
The visit agenda of Russian naval sailors in Cam Ranh envisages meetings with the leadership of the province and the command of the 4th naval district of the Vietnamese People’s Army. Russian naval sailors will have a volleyball friendly match with a team from the 4th Vietnamese naval district.
The visit to Cam Ranh, where a logistic base of the Pacific Fleet, the largest Russian foreign naval base, had been located for 23 years before May 2002, became the last foreign stopover for the Pacific Fleet convoy on the way back home.
Since mid-March, the convoy under the flag of Assistant Commander of Primorsky multi-service force Rear Admiral Vladimir Dmitriyev participated in an international anti-piracy mission off Somalia’s coast in the Gulf of Aden. Earlier, Pacific naval forces represented Russia at large-scale Komodo multilateral exercises to eliminate aftermaths of natural disasters which were held off Indonesian coast.
The return of warships to a permanent base at the Russian Far Eastern port of Vladivostok is planned for early July.