Northern Fleet gives priority to faraway voyages
A key part of combat training for the Russian navy’s new frigates in 2025 will be long-distance sailings. In Severomorsk, the Admiral Gorshkov was welcomed home after a voyage that lasted 226 days.
The crew came home just in time to celebrate New Year's eve in the Northern Fleet's main base Severomorsk, north of Murmansk. The Admiral Gorshkov had then been at sea for 226 days. The warship sailed out to the North Atlantic on May 17th together with the multi-purpose submarine Kazan.
A first port-call was made to Havana, Cuba, in mid June.
While the Kazan returned back across the Atlantic, the frigate continued to another of Russia's important allies in Latin America, Venezuela. Thereafter, the voyage continued to the Mediterranean with port call to Oran in Algeria in July and Tunisia in October.
In early December, the Admiral Gorshkov sailed together with her sister vessel Admiral Golokov, conducting a live-fire missile exercise in the waters off the coast of Syrian port of Tartus.
With the fall of the Moscow-supported Bashar al-Assad regime, the Russian navy is now withdrawing from Tartus, Russia’s only naval base in the Mediterranean Sea.
2025 priority
Summing up 2024 and looking into 2025, Navy commander Admiral Aleksandr Moiseev now says it will still be a priority for the frigates to sail on world-ocean missions.
The Admiral Kasatonov, currently docked at the same pier as Admiral Gorshkov in Severomorsk, is now preparing for a faraway mission, but the Northern Fleet does not specify possible destinations. The frigate has recently training in the Barents Sea with live shootings of missiles and other weapons.
The Northern Fleet's frigates are among the newest and most modern in the Russian surface navy. Each vessel is armed with 16 launchers for Kalibr, Oniks and Tsirkon cruise missiles and 32 surface-to-air missiles. It can also carry anti-submarine torpedoes.
For now, the Northern Fleet based on the Kola Peninsula has three frigates of the class, and four more are under construction and have planned deliveries from 2026 to 2029. Three other frigates will be delivered to the Pacific Fleet.
The Northern Fleet's naval forces based on the coast to the Barents Sea have been little affected by the war in Ukraine. Exercises, training and deliveries of new vessels and weapons systems continue despite the costly war in Ukraine.
