Russian Navy: We never stopped patrolling the world’s oceans
Reports about two Russian submarines patrolling the waters outside USA have created concern that Russian is upscaling its presence in foreign waters, but Russian Navy officials claim that Russian submarines never stopped patrolling the world’s oceans.
“Russian submarines never stopped patrolling the world’s oceans, but their operations are of a secret character and never commented by Russian Navy officials”, a high-ranking representative from the Russian Navy Headquarters told RIA Novosti in a comment on the report in New York Times. “Even in the hard 1990’s Russian submarines sailed the oceans on combat alert duty”, the source said.
The American newspaper earlier this week referred to a source in Pentagon who said that a pair of nuclear-powered Russian attack submarines had been patrolling off the eastern seaboard of the United States and called it “a rare mission that has raised concerns inside the Pentagon and intelligence agencies about a more assertive stance by the Russian military”.
The two submarines were reported to be of the Akula-class attack submarines. Both the Russian Northern Fleet and the Pacific Fleet has several subs of this class.
