MOSCOW. April 18 (Interfax-AVN) - The exercise of Russian and Indian Navy ships scheduled for May will have several stages, a high-ranking official of the Russian Navy Staff said on Friday.
"During the first stage, the ships will exercise in searching for a submarine," the official told Interfax-Military News Agency. An Indian submarine will act as a hostile vessel, he stressed.
"After that, Russian and Indian ships will hold a sea rescue operation. The Russian-Indian naval exercise will end with artillery firing," the official noted.
Russia is represented at the exercise by ships of the Black Sea and Pacific Fleets. The former fleet sent its flagship Moskva, Pytlivy and Smetlivy guard ships and Tsezar Kunikov large landing craft to the Indian Ocean, and the latter fleet its Marshal Shaposhnikov and Admiral Panteleyev large anti-submarine ships.
The two vessel units left Vladivostok and Sevastopol from April 6 to 10 together with auxiliary vessels. They are to meet near the Island of Sokotra in the Indian Ocean in late April.