The Russian Defense Ministry announced yesterday that a U.S. Navy Virginia-class nuclear attack submarine had breached Russian territorial waters around the Kuril Islands and was chased off by Russian naval units. The vessel was found submerged off the small uninhabited island of Urup, while Russia’s Pacific Fleet was holding exercises in the area. Russian vessels contacted the submarine, warning it was in the country’s territorial waters and ordering it to surface immediately, the military said, reported RT. The submarine, however, did not respond to the messages, and destroyer Marshal Shaposhnikov was deployed to chase it off. The Russian vessel used “appropriate means” against the U.S. sub, the military reported without providing any further details. Following the run-in with the destroyer, the Virginia-class submarine used an active radar decoy, sailing away from Russian waters at full speed.
Shortly after the incident, the Russian Defense Ministry said it had summoned a U.S. military attaché to explain the incursion. Moscow added that the actions of the submarine constitute a major violation of international law, and create a threat to Russia’s national security. The military said it reserves the right to take any security measures in its own territorial waters.
According to a subsequent TASS report posted this morning, the U.S. submarine was detected during a Russian Navy anti-submarine exercise. “An American Virginia-class submarine was detected by Il-38 naval aviation aircraft and one of the submarines of the Pacific Fleet during the drills on the search and elimination of a hypothetical enemy’s submarines in the areas of their possible deployment,” a source close to the naval sphere told TASS.
According to the source, the submarine’s coordinates were transmitted to the group of warships led by the Pacific Fleet’s frigate Marshal Shaposhnikov, with the Russian multi-purpose ship undertaking all the necessary actions on the protection of Russia’s state border. The source observed that the U.S. submarine had an objective advantage in the detection of the Russian vessel, yet the speedy actions of the Pacific Fleet’s anti-submarine forces apparently caught it off-guard and the submarine did not manage to leave the area of the drills unnoticed.
The U.S. Navy denied operating in Russian territorial waters. “There is no truth to the Russian claims of our operations in their territorial waters,” Indo-Pacific Command spokesman Navy Capt. Kyle Raines said in a statement, reported Stars & Stripes. “I will not comment on the precise location of our submarines, but we do fly, sail, and operate safely in international waters.” Notice that he did not deny the fact of the incident itself.
Virginia-class submarines are designed for a broad spectrum of open-ocean and littoral missions, including anti-submarine warfare and intelligence gathering operations, and incorporate the latest in stealth, intelligence gathering, and weapons systems technology, including 3-D AI-assisted imaging technology
