MOSCOW. Jan 29 (Interfax-AVN) - A naval exercise involving Russian and French nuclear-powered submarines will be held in the Atlantic in summer 2004, Russian Navy Chief-of-Staff Admiral Viktor Kravchenko said on Thursday.
"We are planning to hold an exercise involving nuclear- powered submarines of the two countries in the Atlantic in summer this year," Kravchenko told Interfax-Military News Agency.
Russia will be represented by nuclear submarines of the Northern Fleet and a surface ship. "The French party will have the same composition of forces at the exercise," Kravchenko said.
Upon completion of the exercise, the Russian vessels will visit the French port of Brest, which is a base of the French Navy.
Army General Henri Bentegeat, chief-of-staff of the French Armed Forces, said in Moscow on Tuesday that the Russian-French exercise of summer 2003 that featured a call of nuclear submarines to the Russian port of Severomorsk will have a continuation. "A similar exercise will be held this year as well," he said.
The Russian-French joint naval training in interaction of submarine forces took place in the Barents Sea in July 2003. Russian and French submariners interacted closely underwater, established contacts and followed a set course jointly. The exercise involved the Vepr nuclear submarine of the Russian Northern Fleet and the Casabianca nuclear submarine of the French Navy.