"Pyotr Velikiy" is the flagship of the Northern Fleet. In late April, the vessel underwent deep cleaning to curb the spread of COVID-19. Photo: Press Service of the Northern Fleet

Battlecruiser leads Barents Sea exercise

Waters north of the Kola Peninsula is temporarily closed for civilian shipping as the Northern Fleet’s nuclear-powered battlecruiser "Pyotr Velikiy" conducts weapons shootings together with other surface warships and submarines.
May 23, 2021

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Armed with a variety of cruise missiles, rocket launchers, artillery, and torpedoes, the 252-meter long cruiser is the world’s largest surface combat ship and holds a crew of more than 700 men. 

This weekend, the Northern Fleet kicked of an exercise involving surface ships of the Kola flotilla, anti-submarine ships, submarines, bombers, and maritime surveillance aircraft. 

During the drill, the warships will conduct submarine hunting, repelling an air attack, and test elements of electronic warfare, the press service of the Northern Fleet informs.

“Pyotr Velikiy”, though, returned to the Kola bay outside Severomorsk on Sunday and left again shortly afterward, a post on the Vkontakte page of the fleet’s newspaper Na strazhe zapolyarya said. 

Additional to closed-off shooting areas for rockets and artillery north of the Kola bay, larger areas along the coast of Novaya Zemlya in the eastern Barents Sea is closed for a month starting at May 22nd, the Administration of Sea Ports of Russia’s Western Arctic region, informs in a PRIP announcement.

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