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Anchors Away
// Vladimir Putin tests the admiral's battle readiness
Inspections
The North Fleet begins exercises today in the Barents Sea. The results of those exercises will show whether the fleet is ready for a change of main commander and chief of the Navy General Staff.
During the Security 2004 strategic command staff training, submariners gaffed twice with Russian President Vladimir Putin watching. First, the atomic submarine Novomoskovsk was unable to launch a Sineva RSM-54 ballistic missile while submerged. Later, Chief Commander of the Navy Vladimir Kuroedov told journalists that the submarine made a “condition electronic” launch. The next day, the submarine Karelia managed to launch a Sineva, but it veered off course and self-destructed after 98 seconds.
Immediately after Putin returned to Moscow, a Joint Staff commission descended on the Northern Fleet and the submariners were scheduled for a reexamination. On March 17, 2004, the Novomoskovsk launched two Sineva that hit their targets in the Kura test range in Kamchatka. The president was not present to see their accomplishment, so he had Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov plan one more event, at which he could personally see that their failures had been overcome.
The present exercises will allow the president to evaluate how admirals appointed since the Security 2004 maneuvers behave in conditions resembling war. In May 2004, Adm. Mikhail Abramov took command of the Northern Fleet, replacing Adm. Gennady Suchkov after the latter was sentenced to four years in prison for the deaths of nine crewmembers in the sinking of the K-159 atomic submarine. In January 2005, Commander of the Black Sea Fleet Vladimir Masorin replaced retiring Chief of the Navy Joint Staff Viktor Kravchenko.
According to information obtained by Kommersant, Masorin and Abramov are the top candidates for promotion should Kuroedov be replaced. Masorin could become Chief Commander of the Navy and Abramov Chief of the Navy Joint Staff. Therefore, much depends on the success of today's exercises for Abramov and Masorin, who will manage them directly as acting chief commander.
Ivanov stated yesterday that he had reported to the president that all was in readiness. Kommersant has found out that the heavy atomic missile-bearing cruiser Petr Veliky and aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov will be used in the exercises, accompanied by a large antisubmarine ship, an Antei-type atomic submarine, a Shchuka-B-type atomic submarine and two Delfin-type strategic atomic submarine cruisers armed with Sineva missiles. One of the last two is to launch two missiles at the Kura range on Wednesday. The other is to be prepared for the launch in case of problems with the first.
The fleet's actions will be preceded by a strike with two X-555 cruise missiles by two Tu-160 strategic fighter planes from the 22nd heavy bomber air division (Engels) on the Pemboi range outside Vorkutsk. After the fleet fires on the Kura range, the space forces will come into play and launch a Rokot carrier rocket with a Monitor intelligence satellite from Plesetsk and launch an RS-20 Satan heavy intercontinental ballistic missile from Baikonur.
Ivan Safronov
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 16, 2005
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