The crews of the Russian Black Sea Fleet small anti-submarine warfare ships practised hunting down and eliminating a notional enemy submarine during drills in the Black Sea. The drills took place amid the presence of two US warships in the sea that had reportedly deployed there for joint operations with NATO allies and partners in the region.
On October 30, the headquarters of the Sixth Fleet of the US Navy and Naval strike forces and NATO support forces began operations in the Black and Mediterranean Seas. The American Arleigh Burke-class missile destroyer USS Porter has begun transit to the Black Sea to interact with NATO allies and partners in the region.
On November 3, the US Navy ship John Lenthall entered the Bosphorus Strait and headed for the Black Sea. On November 4, the forces of the Russian Black Sea Fleet began monitoring the actions of the flagship of the US Navy USS Mount Whitney, which entered the Black Sea. En route to its destination, the flagship stopped in Istanbul to later join the US Navy destroyer Porter, which was already in the Black Sea on November 1.
It is specified by TASS that the crews of the Black Sea Fleet’s small anti-submarine warfare ships Yeisk and Kasimov operating as part of a surface strike group practised searching for and detecting a notional enemy submarine in interaction with the crew of a Ka-27M anti-submarine helicopter. In the course of the exercise, the crews of the ships used their own data and the data on the submarine provided by the anti-submarine helicopter to search for and track the sub and also attacked the underwater target, employing torpedo armaments and rocket-propelled depth charges.
According to the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, NATO drills in the Black Sea are related to Washington’s aim to contain Moscow.
“I think that NATO exercises are connected with the desire of the US and its allies to follow the policy of containment of Russia in spite of everything that was said in the 1990s and was included in the Russia-NATO Founding Act, which was completely violated in its key part,” Lavrov said.
Russian Minister of Defence, Sergei Shoigu, expressed the same opinion, noting that in such a way border protection of the country is tested.
“This is, you know, an almost constant attempt to test us, to check how ready we are, how well we have built the entire system along the Black Sea coast, in general, in the south of our country,” he said.
Ru-Main, 09.11.2021
Source: Sputnik
