OREANDA-NEWS. In 2019, the Black Sea Fleet will receive 13 new warships and support vessels, including small-size missile ships armed with long-range “Kalibr” missiles. This was announced today by the commander of the Southern Military District, Colonel General Alexander Dvornikov.

“The government certification is carried out by the patrol ship “Dmitry Rogachov”, the high-speed amphibious craft of the new project, and the seagoing tug ‘Sergey Balk’,” Dvornikov told to the media. He added, without mentioning any certain dates, that it is planned to receive 13 new warships and supply vessels, including small-size missile ships of various projects equipped with “Kalibr” cruise missiles.

Alexander Dvornikov reminded that the rearmament of the Black Sea Fleet began in 2014, after the reunification of Crimea and Sevastopol (the Black Sea Fleet base) with Russia. Over the last five years, the Black Sea fleet has gotten frigates “Admiral Grigorovich”, “Admiral Essen”, “Admiral Makarov”, small-size missile ships “Vyshniy Volochok” and “Orekhovo-Zuevo”, and several modern submarines, “Novorossisk”, “Rostov-on-Don”, “Stary Oskol”, “Krasnodar”. Thus, the fleet has been significantly reinforced, and now the rearmament process is going on.

The Crimean peninsula is also reliably protected by four batallions of the “S-400 Triumf” anti-aircraft missile systems and the “Bal” and “Bastion” anti-ship missile systems (the latter have replaced “Redut” and “Rubezh” of the older generation).

Earlier it was reported that for the Black Sea fleet a small-size missile ship “Ingushetia” (project 21631 "Buyan-M") is being built at the Zelenodolsk ship-building yard, and a small-size missile ship “Tsiklon” (project 22800 “Karakurt”) is under construction at the Feodosiya ship-building yard “More”.