Russian Navy ships to repel saboteurs’ attack during drills off French coast

MOSCOW, January 31. /TASS/: The Northern Fleet’s naval group led by the missile cruiser Marshal Ustinov will hold drills to fight a notional enemy’s underwater saboteurs during its anchorage in the Seine Bay, the Fleet’s press office reported on Friday.

"The group of the Northern Fleet’s ships and vessels has completed its transit of the Bay of Biscay, entered the English Channel and anchored in the Seine Bay. During the anchorage, the Northern Fleet sailors will replenish shipborne supplies and practice organizing the defense of ships and vessels against underwater saboteurs in an unsafe roadstead," the press office said in a statement.

The missile cruiser Marshal Ustinov, the large anti-submarine warfare ship Vice-Admiral Kulakov, the medium sea tanker Vyazma and the rescue tug SB-406 will shortly start passing through the English Channel’s narrowest part, the Strait of Dover, after which they will continue moving towards the Northern Fleet’s main naval base of Severomorsk. They are expected to return home in the first half of February.