Kilo-class submarine ‘Novorossiysk' was spotted off the Balearics.

Kilo-class submarine ‘Novorossiysk' was spotted off the Balearics. | Majorca Daily Bulletin reporter

Humphrey CarterPalma14/01/2025 10:12
TW
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The Spanish navy frigates ‘Victoria’ and ‘Blas de Lezo’, as well as the Maritime Action Ship (BAM) ‘Tornado’, have monitored and tracked four Russian naval vessels over the past few weeks during their transit through maritime areas of interest to Spain in the Alboran Sea, the Gulf of Cadiz and the Atlantic coast. The ‘Tornado’ tracked the Kilo-class submarine ‘Novorossiysk’ in its transit from the eastern Mediterranean to northern Europe, after locating it south of the Balearics.

Since then, it has been tracking the Russian vessel as far as Portuguese waters, the Navy said in a statement. The Kilo-class submarines are a group of diesel-electric attack submarines designed by the Rubin Design Bureau in the Soviet Union in the 1970s and built originally for the Soviet Navy.
The first version had the Soviet designation Project 877 Paltus (Russian: Па́лтуmeaning “halibut”), NATO reporting name Kilo.

They entered operational service in 1980 and continued being built until the mid-1990s, when production switched to the more advanced Project 636 Varshavyanka variant, also known in the West as the Improved Kilo class. The design was updated again by the Russian Navy in the mid-2010s, to a variant called Project 636.3, also known as Improved Kilo II.

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The frigate ‘Victoria’ put to sea to locate and monitor the frigate ‘Golovko’ during its stay in the Alboran Sea, where it was escorting the Russian-flagged merchant ship ‘Lady Maria’. During the search, it sighted the ‘Altay’, a Russian tanker that acts as a supply vessel for Russian units in the vicinity of the Algerian bay of Oran. Finally, off the maritime border with Portugal, the frigate ‘Blas de Lezo’ located and monitored the Russian submarine ‘Novorossiysk’ in its transit to the north, until transferring tracking responsibility to a French vessel.

After performing maritime security tasks, which are carried out as part of the presence, surveillance and deterrence operations of the Russian vessels, the frigates ‘Victoria’ and ‘Blas de Lezo’ returned to their home ports in Rota and Ferrol, respectively. The BAM ‘Tornado’, on the other hand, continues its maritime surveillance duties in the maritime areas under national sovereignty in the area of the Strait of Gibraltar and the Alboran Sea.

During presence, surveillance and deterrence operations (OPVD), in the framework of which these monitoring tasks are carried out, the ships remain integrated into the Maritime Operational Command (MOM) and under the operational control of the Operations Command (MOPS).