International   

Naval-aerial war games

MOSCOW: Russia has launched the “active phase” of naval-aerial war games in the Northeast Atlantic in the biggest display of its military power since the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Eleven warships drawn from Russia’s Northern and Black Sea Fleets and backed up by dozens of aircraft began joint exercises in the Bay of Biscay off the west coast of France and the northern coast of Spain, a spokesman for the Russian Navy said on Tuesday. “This is the biggest exercise of its kind in the area since Soviet times,” the spokesman said.

It is also for the first time that the Russian Navy has deployed a large presence outside of Russia’s immediate coastal regions since the end of the Cold War.

The two-month tour of duty in the Mediterranean Sea and the North Atlantic is part of an effort to resume permanent presence in different areas of the world ocean, Russia’s Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov siad.

Last year Russia resumed regular global patrolling by its long-range nuclear bombers.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Naval-aerial war games
Nepal police posts attacked
Musharraf rules out Islamist takeover of Pakistan
Rajapaksa wants India to help resolve ethnic conflict
Hindraf petitions Malaysian Premier for “justice”
ArcelorMittal’s assurance
I don’t want to go to India just for an afternoon: Carla

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu