15.08.2012
Northern Fleet (NF) destroyer Vice Admiral Kulakov returns to the fleet's naval base Severomorsk after anti-piracy mission off Somalia.
The ship started anti-piracy mission in the Gulf of Aden in May 2012. Through that period, NF destroyer
Vice Admiral Kulakov has escorted 14 civil vessels under flags of Marshall Islands, Malta, Panama, Turkey, Liberia, Hong Kong, and Saudi Arabia.
Being attached to the destroyer crew, teams of Russian marines boarded those ships to protect them under way. Ship-based helicopter
Ka-27 has performed dozens of sorties in order to monitor the situation along the routes, writes
Murmansk Review.
After completion of the anti-piracy mission,
Vice Admiral Kulakov headed NF surface group operated within Russian Navy's interfleet task force in the exercise off Syria.
It is planned that the destroyer would pay formal visit to the port of Lisbon (Portugal) this weekend. Under way through the Atlantic,
Vice Admiral Kulakov will also call at ports of Portsmouth (UK) and Cork (Ireland).
This anti-piracy patrol was the first mission of
Vice Admiral Kulakov after 20 years of repair and modernization, reported
Barents Observer. The destroyer was commissioned in 1982 and was in service at Northern Fleet till March 1991. In Dec 2011, the ship joined the Navy again.
Russian Navy keeps its presence off Somalia since Oct 2008 on rotational basis.
