MOSCOW (Dispatches) – Russia is constantly and successfully improving its naval armaments and can detect any enemy and deliver an inevitable strike against it, if necessary, Russian President Vladimir Putin said ahead of the beginning of the Main Naval Parade on Sunday.
“Russia has taken a worthy place among the leading naval powers within the shortest time possible, passed a colossal way of its development from a modest small boat of Peter the Great to powerful ocean-going naval ships and nuclear-powered underwater missile-carrying cruisers, created effective long-and short-range naval aviation, reliable coastal defense systems and the latest hypersonic precision weapons unrivaled in the world, which we are improving constantly and successfully,” the Russian president said, TASS reported.
Today, the Russian Navy has all the necessary potential for the reliable protection of the Motherland and Russia’s national interests, Putin stressed.
“We are capable of detecting any surface, underwater and aerial enemy and deliver an inevitable strike, if necessary,” the Russian president assured.
Putin observed naval parade in St. Petersburg to mark the country’s 325th anniversary of the Russian navy.
During the parade, Navy Commander-in-Chief Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov reported to the president about the status of the naval forces.
More than 50 ships, boats, and submarines were participating in the parade. The aerial part of the parade included more than 40 aircraft and helicopters. About 4,000 personnel are also taking part.
Ships from the Indian, Pakistani, and Iranian navies also took part in the parade, according to Russia’s Sputnik news agency.
The Navy Day is annually celebrated in Russia on the last Sunday of July.
The parade comes amid intensifying tensions between the West and Russia over the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry said outside powers are artificially inflating tensions in the Black Sea, and Moscow will be closely monitoring the implementation of the Montreux Convention regulating the transit of warships into and out of the body of water.
“Against a background of the artificial ratcheting up the situation in the Black Sea by certain non-regional players, we consider the task of ensuring the strict implementations of the provision of the Montreaux Convention very urgent,” a ministry spokesperson told Sputnik.
“A special role in this regard belongs to Turkey, which is endowed with certain rights in relation to the control the transit of military ships through the Strait,” the spokesperson added.
This week marked the 85th anniversary of the adoption of the Montreux Convention. Signed in 1936, the document is aimed at ensuring the freedom of passage for commercial ships of all countries during both peacetime and wartime.
It limits the passage of warships, however, with non-Black Sea powers (i.e. those states that do not have a maritime border with the Black Sea) subject to restrictions on the maximum tonnage of naval vessels entering the body of water.
The United States has violated the Montreux Convention in several instances in the past.