On April 23rd, the Baltic Fleet of the Russian Navy reported that it completed a navigation safety exercise which focused on protecting civilian maritime traffic from attacks made by UAV, USV and submarines. According to the Baltic Fleet, 20 warships and support ships as well as 5.000 servicemen were involved in the exercise.
Given the fact that Russian naval exercise often count support ships such as harbor tugs and supporting services as part of the exercise, the actual deployed military strength at sea was probably significantly lower.
The exercise started a couple days after the Estonian Navy stopped the Panama-flagged tanker Kiwala on April 11th and prevented it from continuing its journey to the Russian port of Ust-Luga until it has resolved several issues regarding maritime safety. Though not mentioned directly, this recent exercise by the Baltic Fleet could be viewed as Russia demonstrating its capabilities and intent to provide military escort to its commercial fleets in light of Estonia’s actions.
Large scale exercise focused on naval warfare and protecting civilian traffic
The Baltic Fleet exercise started several days earlier, on April 15th. The tasks set forward are described as escorting and protecting civilian ships and defend them from attacks made by unmanned aerial vehicles, unmanned surface vehicles, conventional surface warships and submarines as well as providing assistance to damaged ships. The latter involved firefighting, damage control, search and rescue operations and towing vessels back to port.
A detailed overview, based on press releases provided by the Russian Ministry of Defense, shows that the majority of the exercises took place on April 15th and 16th with Naval Aviation being deployed on April 17th and 18th. Subsequent small scale exercises were reported on April 22nd and 23rd. The exercises was clearly split across three distinct and separate phases centered on respectively surface combat, defense against USV attacks and anti-submarine exercises.
The first phase took place on April 15th and 16th and focused primarily on standard naval combat with Russian warships engaging surface targets with missiles and naval gunfire, set up air-defense, lay defensive minefields and search for submarines. A special training scenario unfolded on April 16th during which the hijacking of a Russian civilian ship was simulated with Parachim class anti-submarine corvette Kazanets playing the role of a hostile warship. Russia countered this attack by deploying the Tarantul class missile boat Morshansk to intercept and force the Kazanets away from the civilian ship, assisted with Bastion coastal missile defense systems as well as fighters and aircraft of the Naval Aviation regiment.
A second phase took place on April 17th and 18th with helicopters of the Naval Aviation regiment deployed to search for and engaged unmanned boats that simulated a USV attack against Russian naval assets. The exercise reportedly made use of lessons learned from the Russo-Ukrainian war though the Russian Ministry of Defense didn’t provide enough detailed information regarding the setup of this phase to validate its effectiveness independently.
The third phase of the exercise took place on April 22nd and 23rd with anti-submarine exercises on the Baltic Sea training ranges of Kaliningrad. An unidentified Kilo class submarine played the role of the hostile submarine and was subsequently engaged by at least three surface vessels of the Baltic Fleet.
Based on the reports provided by the Russian Ministry of Defense, the exercise involved at least 11 warships of the Baltic Fleet. These were identified as the Steregushchy-class corvettes Boiky and Soobrazitelny, Buyan-M class corvette ZelenyDol¸Parachim-class anti-submarine corvettes Kazanets, Aleksinand Kabardino–Balkariya, the Tarantul-class missile boat Morshansk as well as the Alexandrit-class minehunters AleksandrObukhovandLevChernavin, and the Lida-class minesweeper VasilyPolyakov. Also present was an unidentified Kilo-class submarine.
Response to new developments in the Baltic Sea
Several European Union nations have in recent weeks started to take a more active stance against Russia’s so-called Shadow Fleet. This Shadow Fleet is a popular name for a fleet of old tankers that Russia uses to transport its oil to international markets and circumvent Western economic sanctions. These vessels are registered in countries other then Russia and often sail without insurance or AIS devices. The latter issue making them very difficult to track and figure out where Russia oil exports are heading. Some of these vessels belonging to the Shadow Fleet are known to transfer their cargo to other tankers once in international waters. Limiting the operations of this Shadow Fleet has become a focus point of recent Western Economic Sanctions but so far have mainly been aimed to prevent these tankers from docking in Western ports.
In recent weeks, both Germany and Estonia have taken more direct actions against the Shadow Fleet. On March 21st, Germany impounded the Panama-flagged tanker Eventin that was anchored off Germany’s Baltic Sea coast since January after being adrift in heavy seas. The decision to impound the vessel was taken after the vessel was listed to be part of the Shadow Fleet in February and might have been done to send a message to Russia. The tanker, and its cargo of 100,000 tons of crude oil valued to be worth €40 million, thus became property of the Germany state. The impounding was a direct action taken against the Shadow Fleet but not a very surprising one. The tanker was already damaged and adrift when towed to safer waters by German tugboats in January.
On April 11th, the Estonian Navy intercepted and halted the Russian oil tanker Kiwala which was en route towards the Russian port of Ust-Luga. After inspection, the Kiwala was found to have 40 deficiencies which had to be corrected before the vessel was allowed to continue its voyage. 29 of the deficiencies were listed to be related to missing documentation with other deficiencies relating to maritime safety management, crew emergency readiness and technical shortcomings. All issues were resolved and the Kiwala was cleared to leave Estonian waters on April 26th.
Both these actions are isolated cases and aren’t part of a general effort to disrupt the Shadow Fleet as a whole. They do however indicate that European Union member states are willing to take a more direct approach against the Shadow Fleet when maritime safety is being threatened. It is probable that more of these actions will take place in the future, thus disrupting the Shadow Fleet operations.
It is highly possible that the Safety of Navigation exercise held by the Baltic Fleet is a direct response against the German and most likely Estonian actions. The exercise was focused on demonstrating the Baltic Fleets military capabilities in fighting off attempts to intercept, board and detain Russian civilian warships as well as provide direct support in the form of fire fighting and damage control to civilian shipping. The exercise appears to have been purely offensive in nature as no reports were made about the Baltic Fleet setting up procedures to actually escort ships or organize convoys. It can be argued that such experience already available as the Russian Navy in recent months has been escorting and protecting its civilian vessels transporting weapons and equipment out of Syria and back to Russia. Russian frigates in the Mediterranean were reported providing an escort of loaded cargo vessels from the Syrian naval base at Tartus towards the Strait of Gibraltar.
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发布者：Frederik Van Lokeren，转转请注明出处：https://robotalks.cn/russian-navys-baltic-fleet-holds-safety-of-navigation-exercise/
