Russia has launched Oniks anti-ship cruise missile during military exercises in the Arctic.
The missile firings from the coastal defense missile system deployed on the Alexandra Land Island were performed for the first time as part of the Northern Fleet’s planned combat and operational training measures for the summer training period, according to a press release issued Tuesday by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.
“Today the personnel of the Bastion coastal defense missile system of the Northern Fleet’s tactical group stationed at the Arctic Trefoil military base on the Alexandra Land Island of the Franz Josef Land archipelago fired a cruise missile against a naval target. The missile fire was delivered against a target vessel installed in the Barents Sea at a distance of about 200 km from the launch site. The target was successfully struck by an Oniks anti-ship cruise missile,” the press office said in a statement.
The missile firings from the coastal defense missile system deployed on the Alexandra Land Island were performed for the first time as part of the Northern Fleet’s planned combat and operational training measures for the summer training period. The ships and vessels of the Northern Fleet’s Arctic grouping accomplishing deployment missions in the Barents Sea near the Franz Josef Land archipelago provided security of the firings and closed the sea area for the time of the exercise, the statement says.
In the past years, the Northern Fleet conducted similar firings from Bastion coastal defense systems deployed on the Kotelny Island, the press office said.
The Bastion coastal defense system with the standardized Yakhont (Oniks) supersonic homing anti-ship cruise missile is designated to strike various types of surface ships operating as part of amphibious assault formations, convoys, surface action and carrier strike groups, and also sole ships and radar-contrast land targets under intensive fire and electronic counter-measures.
The Bastion is one of the carriers of the Oniks missile, which along with the Kalibr and Kh-35 ‘Uran’ missile systems and the breakthrough Tsirkon hypersonic anti-ship missile is the Russian Navy’s basic anti-ship weapon.