Russian Navy releases details of anti-submarine drills off Norway
Updated 1 hour ago
THE RUSSIAN NAVY has released details of its drills off the coast of Norway in recent days as they simulated submarine hunting with ships and aircraft.
The ships of the Russian Northern Fleet are believed to be the ships for naval exercises in the Atlantic off Ireland.
Those drills are due to start on Thursday and a Russian tanker, supposed to supply ships with fuel, has also started moving south across the North Sea en route to the English Channel, tracking data shows.
Details of the exercise were released by the Russian government through its Tass news agency.
In a short press release, the Northern Fleet said the Arctic Expeditionary Force, part of the Russian Northern Fleet, was practicing anti-submarine warfare in the Norwegian Sea.
“The crews of the missile cruiser Marshal Ustinov and the frigate Fleet Admiral Kasatonov tracked down the fictitious enemy submarines using an anti-submarine warfare helicopter,” the office said. press in a press release.
The press release also revealed that Ka-27m helicopters, flying from the deck of the frigate Admiral Kasatonov, carried out sweeps to find the submarine using “radio-technical equipment and on-board sonar”.
The newspaper first news announced of exercises off the Irish coast two weeks.
Initially, the Russians were going to conduct their planned exercise inside Ireland’s Exclusive Economic Zone, 240km off the coast of Cork.
This weekend the Russians decided to move their tests citing an intervention by the Foreign Office and protests from the West Cork fishing fleet.
They did not say where the new exercises will take place, but they are expected to take place on Thursday.
The Atlantic exercises are just one aspect of a large set of training maneuvers by the Russians in the Mediterranean, the North Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk, the Northeast Atlantic and the ocean Peaceful.
The global operation, according to the Russians, will see 140 warships and support vessels, more than 60 aircraft, 1,000 military equipment and around 10,000 troops.
Meanwhile, Justice Minister Helen McEntee this morning defended Ireland’s defense record following comments that the forces were under-resourced.
Independent TD Cathal Berry told RTÉ’s The Week in Politics yesterday that Ireland is seen internationally as an EU security weak spot, while Foreign Secretary Simon Coveney told RTÉ Radio One’s This Week that he had “long accepted” that the Defense Force was under-resourced.
Coveney has commissioned a report to assess Ireland’s defense capabilities, which is expected to be published in the coming weeks.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, McEntee said the report will highlight how much needs to be spent on the defense force, but said Ireland’s position as a neutral country and its job of keeping of peace abroad “is not in question here”.
“What I think is clear though, and I don’t know if there is any suggestion to the contrary, is that our position as a neutral country and our responsibility and the work of our Defense Force peacekeepers around the world have been internationally recognized and decorated and have responded in such a positive light for 50 or 60 years,” she said.
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“But as a country ourselves, our capabilities, and do we need to do more? You know, this is a question we need to have answered, and I hope this report will also give us a clearer direction.
Russia’s ambassador to Ireland, Yury Anatoliyevich Filatov, this week accepted an invitation to appear before an Oireachtas committee.
He will appear before the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defense on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Joint European Affairs Committee will meet to discuss the EU’s role in the Russia-Ukraine crisis.
The committee will hear from Professor Donnacha Ó Beacháin, who lectures on post-Soviet politics at DCU, and UCD Professor of International Relations Ben Tonra.
The Russian Ambassador recently met with Chief of Defense Staff Seán Clancy at McKee Barracks on January 21.
The Russian embassy said the two men discussed Russian-Irish relations and “the international agenda, as well as the prospects for contacts between the armed forces of the two countries”.
Additional reporting by Lauren Boland