PF Warship Escorts Five Vessels Thru Gulf Of Aden

17.10.2011 Pacific Fleet (PF) large ASW ship Admiral Panteleyev escorts a convoy consisting of five foreign vessels through the piracy-hazardous Gulf of Aden.

"On October 16 at 9.30 pm (Moscow time) PF large ASW ship Admiral Panteleyev started to escort a 5-vessel convoy through the Gulf of Aden", said official spokesman for the Navy.

The Russian warship protects Singaporean-flagged tanker Ocean Tip An with 26 crewmen on board (including three Russians); Panamanian-flagged bulker Pioner Sky with 27-men crew (including one Russian); Indian-flagged tanker Prem Divya with 26 men onboard; Bermuda-flagged bulker Choulex with 25 crewmembers; and Greek-flagged tanker Maran Lyra with 28 men.

PF task unit headed by large ASW ship Admiral Panteleyev arrived from Vladivostok in the Gulf of Aden to attend the international anti-piracy campaign and has already escorted the first 10-ship convoy in Oct.

Meanwhile, Northern Fleet (NF) task unit headed by large ASW ship Severomorsk which had completed anti-piracy tasks prior to Pacific Fleet's colleagues keeps on moving homeward; the unit is expected to arrive in NF main naval base Severomorsk on Oct 21.

Russian warships have been securing commercial shipping off the Horn of Africa since 2008.

Anti-piracy campaign off Somali is carried out under EUNAVFOR – Operation Atalanta launched in 2008 and NATO Operation Ocean Shield started in 2009. Apart from counter-piracy warfare, the latter operation also implies rendering assistance to regional countries in developing own ways to resolve the problem.