Three international exercises for the Northern Fleet in 2011
Vessels and units from Russia’s Northern Fleet will take part in at least three international exercises in 2011 and continue to patrol the waters in the Gulf of Aden, says Vice Admiral Nikolay Maksimov.
According to Commander of the Northern Fleet Vice Admiral Maksimov, his men and vessels will take part in the Norwegian-Russian joint exercise “Pomor-2011”, the international search and rescue exercise “Barents Rescue-2011” and the quadrilateral exercise “Frukus-2011” together with naval forces from France, the U.S. and Great Britain, ITAR-TASS reports.
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– There will much focus on maintaining technical preparedness through repairs and modernization of vessels, the admiral said. – We are expecting to have more assets next year than this one, he added.
The share of officers in the Northern Fleet has been cut back from around 28 percent to 18.5 percent of the total personnel force, Maksimov said. This is part of a general trend in the Russian Armed Forces. The original officers corps constituted about 35 percent of the total personnel staff but will be haved to make up 15 percent of the total staff, BarentsObserver reported.
