For the first time in its modern history, Russia has conducted military exercises involving the simultaneous firing of sea-, air-, coast-, and submarine-launched missiles.
“For the first time in [Russia’s] modern history, we carried out missile firings across four environments at once: from air, sea, shore, and below the water surface," representatives of the Pacific Fleet Information Support Department said upon the completion of the drills.
It has been clarified that this was the first case of conducting such firings in Russia’s post-Soviet era.
The announcement was made by the Information Support Department for the Pacific Fleet of the Russian Armed Forces as they reported on the Finval-2023 naval drills.
Finval-2023 was headed by Nikolay Yevmenov, a Russian admiral currently serving as the commander-in-chief of the Russian Navy, and was held in the Chukchi and Bering Seas, as well as on the Chukchi Peninsula. The drills were aimed at maintaining communications across the Northern Sea Route. On Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry announced the completion of the exercises. The forces involved have begun to return to their permanent deployment bases.
Roughly 10,000 servicemen and over 50 units of military equipment were involved in the exercises. The equipment included surface and support ships, submarines, naval airplanes and helicopters, Bal and Bastion coastal missile systems, as well as high-capability all-terrain wheeled and tracked armored vehicles.
The exercises were defense-oriented and were designed to improve the training of troops to operate on the northeastern borders of the Russian Federation, the Defense Ministry noted.