Russia to hold drills in the Arctic as a response to French frigate’s deployment in the Barents Sea

The mutual show of power in the Arctic continues. NATO assets and the Russian Navy had conducted naval drills one after another last month. After these movements, the Russian Navy’s large anti-submarine warfare ship Vice-Admiral Kulakov is planned to hold the drills in the Arctic in the wake of the French guided missile frigate Aquitaine’s entering the Barents Sea on June 5.

The large anti-submarine warfare ship Vice-Admiral Kulakov has deployed to the Barents Sea to search for a notional enemy’s submarine in drills, the Northern Fleet’s press office reported on 8th June.

Russia’s National Defense Control Center earlier announced that the Northern Fleet’s forces were tracking the movements of the French frigate in the Barents Sea.

During the drills, the Russian Navy “sailors will be searching for and tracking a notional enemy’s submarine and maintaining contact,” the Northern Fleet’s press office said in a statement.

The large anti-submarine warfare ship Vice-Admiral Kulakov will hold torpedo firings against the surface enemy with a practice ammunition load, the press office said.

“The drills will involve the teams of the ship’s combat information center, a group of sonar operators and the personnel of the navigation and torpedo combat compartments,” the statement runs.

The large anti-submarine warfare ship will take part in Russia’s Main Naval Parade in St. Petersburg on July 26. The ship’s crew will begin its inter-fleet transit after two coronavirus tests, the first of which it has successfully passed.

The Project 1155 large anti-submarine warfare ship Vice-Admiral Kulakov is operational within the brigade of anti-subsurface warfare ships of the Northern Fleet’s Kola Flotilla of All Arms Forces based in Severomorsk.

The warship is armed with anti-submarine missile systems, rocket launchers, torpedo tubes and other types of artillery and missile armament. The warship also carries two Ka-27 anti-submarine warfare helicopters.

The Russian Navy has been actively employing the Northern Fleet’s large anti-submarine warfare ships in recent years to perform long-distance deployments to the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea and to carry out missions for the exploration of the Arctic.