Moscow. September 6. INTERFAX-The ships of the Baltic Fleet and the marines of the Northern Fleet will conduct maneuvers in the Baltic Sea in preparation for the Russian-Belarusian strategic exercise "West-2021", the Baltic Fleet said on Monday.
"In the military harbor of Baltiysk, units of the marine corps of the Northern Fleet loaded military equipment onto landing ships for going to sea and carrying out practical actions for landing marine troops at the Khmelevka training ground," the press service of the Baltic Fleet said in a statement.
According to the fleet, during the training, more than 200 servicemen and more than 20 armored personnel carriers of the BTR-80 were loaded onto large landing ships "Korolev", "Kaliningrad", "Minsk", as well as a large landing ship of the Northern Fleet "Olenegorsky Miner".
"In the near future, ships with units and military equipment of the Marine Corps on board will make the transition by sea to the area of the amphibious landing. Covering the landing forces at the sea crossing will be carried out by a detachment of Baltic Fleet warships consisting of corvettes, small missile ships and boats, small anti-submarine ships, as well as naval aviation of the fleet," Baltflot said.
Earlier on Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that reservists were transferred to the Kaliningrad Region against the background of preparations for the Zapad-2021 exercises.
The southern part of the Baltic Sea will become one of the areas of the exercise "West-2021", the Russian Defense Ministry reported last week.
The strategic exercise is held from September 9 to 15 at the training grounds of Russia and Belarus. On September 9, the opening ceremony of maneuvers at the "Mulino" (Nizhny Novgorod region) and "Obuz-Lesnovsky" (Brest region of Belarus) ranges will take place.
On September 2, the Western Military District (ZVO) reported that about 2.5 thousand Russian military personnel were sent to Belarus for the Zapad-2021 exercises.