MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov inspected navy training in the Caspian Sea and ordered the rapid completion of work on new facilities there, his ministry said on Thursday.
It published video showing live-fire exercises at sea, and navy divers firing weapons underwater while training in a swimming pool.
The ministry said construction was under way on more than two km (1.25 miles) of new docking and servicing facilities for Russia’s Caspian Sea Flotilla and a headquarters building.
Belousov said this must be finished as soon as possible because of “the current relevance of the tasks” it was facing.
“We will now take this facility under special control so that everything is properly executed,” Belousov was quoted as saying.
Russia is one of five countries, all major energy producers, that border the Caspian Sea. The others are Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.
(Reporting by Reuters, writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Gareth Jones)
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