MOSCOW. March 12 (Interfax) - A new battalion set of the coastal defense missile system Bastion has entered service in the Pacific Fleet, its press service said on Tuesday.
"The Pacific Fleet has received a new battalion set of the mobile coastal defense missile system Bastion under the program of re-armament with modern military hardware," the fleet said in a statement.
The hardware was delivered by sea to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky before marching to the coastal defense base in northeastern Russia, the military said.
"The same missile formation earlier received a battalion set of the Bal coastal defense missile system," it said.
The Bastion can protect 600 kilometers of coast and defeat various classes and types of surface naval ships operating as part of assault forces, convoys, and naval and aircraft-carrier groups, as well as individual ships and ground targets, amid heavy fire and electronic countermeasures.
The system has been deployed at all Russian Navy fleets (including in the Kurils) and will continue being delivered, at a rate of four per year, until 2021.
The Bastion was designed by NPO Mashinostroyeniya in two variants, mobile (Bastion-P) and stationary (Bastion-S). The system is armed with the Oniks supersonic anti-ship missile.
On November 5, 2016, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that the Bastions deployed in Syria could strike at sea and ground targets. On the same day the Defense Ministry posted YouTube footage of a Bastion-launched Oniks missile striking a ground target: a terrorist arms depot in Syria.
The Bal system entered service in 2008. It forms part of the coastal defense forces and is intended to defend territorial waters, naval bases, coastal infrastructure and against amphibious assaults. The Bal is armed with the anti-ship Kh-35 (3M24) missile with a firing range of 120 kilometers (for Kh-35E) and 260 kilometers (Kh-35U).