Dzirhan Mahadzir – March 12, 2025 6:13 PM
Russian, Chinese and Iranian naval ships are drilling together in the Gulf of Oman as part of an annual exercise. Meanwhile the Russian Pacific Fleet’s flagship, cruiser RFS Varyag (011) and corvette RFS Sovershenny (333) departed Vladivostok on Tuesday for a deployment to the Asia Pacific.
The Maritime Security Belt 2025 drill saw ships from the Russian Navy, the Chinese Peoples’ Liberation Army Navy, Iranian Navy and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy gathering together at Iran’s Chabahar Port on Sunday before setting out on Monday for the sea phase of the drills.
The Russian surface action group comprising corvettes RFS Hero of the Russian Federation Aldar Tsydenzhapov (339) and RFS Rezkiy (343) and fleet oiler Pechenga, all assigned to the Russian Navy Pacific Fleet, which had set out on Feb. 3 for its deployment to the Asia-Pacific and Middle East. PLAN ships participating in the exercise are destroyer CNS Baotou (133) and fleet oiler Gaoyouhu (904), both from the PLAN’s 47th Chinese Naval Escort Task Force. Iran is deploying a total of 10 ships from the Iranian Navy and IRGCN for the drills including Iranian Navy frigates IRIS Alvand (71) and IRIS Jamaran (76), IRGCN corvette Shahid Sayyad Shirazi (FS313-03) and IRGCN patrol craft Shahid Nazeri. The Azerbaijan Republic, South Africa, Oman, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Qatar, Iraq, the UAE, and Sri Lanka have sent observers to the drills according to Iranian press reports.
A Russian Ministry of Defense release on Monday stated that the exercise was first held in the waters of the Arabian Sea in 2018. This year it involves about 15 ships, support vessels and combat boats, as well as naval aviation helicopters. The objectives of the exercise are: ensuring maritime security, countering maritime threats, and preventing the spread of terrorism.”, read the release.
A Wednesday release by the Russian Ministry of Defense stated that over the past two days, warships of the three countries conducted day and night-firing of large-caliber machine-guns and small-arms at targets simulating enemy uncrewed surface vehicles and unmanned aerial vehicles and also during the exercise ship crews searched a ship captured by mock terrorists while special operations units of the three countries conducted joint operations in rescuing the hijacked ship.
The PLAN’s 47th Chinese Naval Escort Task Force, comprising of Baotou, Gaoyouhu, and frigate CNS Honghe (523) left Zhoushan, Zhejiang on Dec. 15, 2024, for its deployment to the Gulf of Aden and the waters around Somalia. China has been sending the Naval Escort Task Force since 2008 to protect Chinese ships from pirates in the region with the task force usually made up of a destroyer, a frigate and a fleet oiler. Along with anti-piracy escort missions, the Chinese Naval Escort Task Force also detaches its ships to represent the PLAN in naval exercises and defense shows in the vicinity of its deployment area of operations.
Both Japan and South Korea also have maintained their own anti-piracy task forces in the region, with South Korea dispatching the Cheonghae unit, a rotational deployment comprising of a Republic of Korea Navy destroyer with naval special forces embarked on it, to the region since 2009. In 2011, the unit rescued a South Korean tanker that had been hijacked by pirates off Somalia, rescuing all 21 crew members, killing eight of the 17 pirate that hijacked the ship. Five more pirates were captured, and four escaped. Japan initially deployed two Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyers for anti-piracy missions in 2009 along with also deploying two JMSDF P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft to operate out of Djibouti supported by a maintenance element and a Japan Ground Self-Defense Force force protection unit in the same year. Japan switched to a single destroyer rotation in 2016, on the basis that piracy activity had significantly decreased while in November 2023, the Japanese government reduced the P-3C deployment to one aircraft, stating that improved facilities at Djibouti now meant that a P-3C could be returned to operational service quickly, eliminating the need for a second back-up aircraft.
On Tuesday, Russian Navy Pacific Fleet flagship, cruiser Varyag and corvette Sovershenny departed Vladivostok to perform missions in the Asia-Pacific region, according to the fleet’s press release on that day which also stated that when leaving the Golden Horn Bay and in the Sea of Japan, the ships carried out training for the crews to repel air attacks, including UAVSs and from unmanned boats, “As part of the upcoming deployment, the cruiser Varyag and the corvette Sovershenny will conduct exercises to search for and destroy enemy submarines, as well as combat exercises as part of the detachment. In addition, joint activities with aircraft of the Pacific Fleet naval aviation will be practiced,” stated the release.
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