The Russian Ministry of Defense announced the the Russian Pacific Fleet, which has the largest number of surface combatants of any Russian fleet, will conduct drills from 03JUN22- 10JUN22.
The Ministry said in a press release: “In the course of practical training, task groups together with naval aviation will detect the notional enemy’s submarines, train air defense of tactical groups of ships, perform combat and training exercises involving surface and aerial targets and practice organizational issues related to material and technical support of seaborne forces.”
Interestingly, The Marshal Krylov missile range instrumentation ship and the Marshal Shaposhnikov frigate will be leading the exercises.
The Marshal Krylov of project 19141 is the only ship of the class in the Russian Navy. It is assigned to the 114th brigade of the Pacific fleet. It is designed to promote tests of new space rockets, the orbiting of spacecraft, search, rescue and evacuation of crews and splashed vehicles, and to detect warships, submarines and aircraft and
report the information. After its 2018 upgrades, the ship became the seaborne command post of the Russian Pacific Fleet, armed with the TRUSSA Communications, Command, Control, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance (C5ISR) system to tie in directly with other surface combatants with TRUSSA aboard.
The Marshal Shaposhnikov, a Udaloy I Class Destroyer, finished its upgrades at the end of 2021 to carry Kalibr and Onyx class cruise missiles. It is one of four Kalibr capable ships, including three Steregushchiy-class corvettes that were delivered to the Pacific fleet last year.
The presence of the Marshal Shaposhnikov and the Marshal Krylov indicates that these drills will be focused on C5ISR on a major surface action group for the Pacific Fleet, but also further testing of the Kalibr cruise missiles, integrated with fleet operations. Thus far, the Kalibr has seen extensive use in Ukraine, but mostly in ship to shore operations in a non-contested littoral environment. Western analysts would be wise to closely observe these drills. It is not clear at this time if any Chinese ships will be attending the drills, there has been no announcement, which further suggests that the Pacific Fleet will be testing Kalibr or Onyx within the action group.
