Moscow. The 14th of February. INTERFAX - The expulsion of a foreign, most likely American, submarine from the waters of Russia took about three hours, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said.
"During the working out of one of the exercises, a submarine, most likely of the United States, was discovered in the area of the Kuril Islands, Urup Island. And as a result of the three-hour actions, the boat was expelled from the water area of the Russian Federation, where it went to a sufficiently deep depth of more than four kilometers. As a result of special actions on this boat, three-fold actions, the boat was expelled from the waters of Russia," Shoigu said on Monday at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"This kind of activity in the east is completely incomprehensible and unjustified," the minister added.
Earlier, Stanislav Gadzhimagomedov, deputy head of the operational Directorate of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, said that Russia is ready to strike at violators of the territorial waters of the Russian Federation, but decisions on this are made at the highest level.
He also noted that Russia still lacks ships and aircraft to counter the American fleet in the Far East, but it is able to "completely close" the Black and Baltic Seas.
The incident with the submarine occurred on February 12 at 10:40 in the area of the planned exercise of the Pacific Fleet forces in the territorial waters of the Russian Federation near the island of Urup of the Kuril Ridge. A US Navy submarine of the Virginia type was found there, the ministry said in a statement.
It noted that the crew of the submarine was notified of its presence in Russian territorial waters, he was given a request for immediate surfacing, which was ignored.
"In accordance with the guidelines for the protection of the state border of the Russian Federation in the underwater environment, the crew of the frigate of the Pacific Fleet Marshal Shaposhnikov used appropriate means," the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.
"The American submarine used a self-propelled simulator to split targets on radar and acoustic monitoring equipment and left the territorial waters of the Russian Federation at maximum speed," the Defense Ministry noted.
