The Russian Navy began a week-long, large-scale exercise called ‘Ocean 2024’ Pacific with Northern and Baltic fleets and the Caspian flotilla joining ships of the People’s Liberation Army Navy and People’s Liberation Army Air Force aircraft participating in the Pacific Fleet portion of the exercise, the US Naval Institute News reports.
The exercise will include more than 400 warships, submarines and support vessels, over 120 naval aircraft and more than 90,000 personnel, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Tuesday. The drills will take place in the waters of the Pacific and Arctic oceans, Mediterranean, Caspian and Baltic seas, according to the MoD.
The drills will be the most important operational and combat training events of the Russian Armed Forces in 2024, and under the overall command of Russian Navy Chief Adm. Aleksandr Moiseyev, the MoD said.
“The Ocean 2024 strategic command post exercise is aimed at checking the readiness of the senior staff of the Russian Navy to operate all-arms groups of forces in the areas of responsibility, to solve non-standard operational tasks, to make full use of high-precision weapons, advanced and modern weapons and military hardware in the practical part of the exercise, and to expand cooperation with the navies of partner countries to perform joint maritime missions,” reads the release.
Ocean was the codename of the naval exercises conducted by the Soviet Navy in the 1970s and 1980s. These maneuvers were the Soviet Navy’s largest Cold War operational and combat training events.
The exercise will include the combined use of precision weapons as well as other modern and advanced weaponry, taking into account, among other things, the experience gained during the special military operation, Russia’s term for its ongoing conflict with Ukraine.
“We are paying special attention to strengthening cooperation with our friendly countries. This is instrumental today amid rising geopolitical tension around the world,” reads the release. So far the Russian MOD has only released that China is participating in the exercise but has not mention any other countries that are involved with the exercise.
Moiseyev said that the Pacific and Baltic Fleets and the Caspian Flotilla will act as friendly forces, and the Northern Fleet as the enemy. He said that 125 Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) will also take part in the exercise while China will participate with four ships and 15 aircraft. China has despatched cruiser CNS Wuxi (104), destroyer CNS Xining (117), frigate CNS Linyi (547) and fleet oiler CNS Taihu(889) for the drills.
