Back from the brink

摘要

The Russian Navy's Northern Fleet escort, RFS Vitse-Admiral Kulakov, has returned to Severomorsk after undertaking her first operational deployment in more than 20 years. The Udaloy I class destroyer carried out anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden, shepherding 14 merchant ships, before taking part in inter-fleet exercises in the Mediterranean near Syria. One of 12 anti-submarine warfare destroyers built for the Soviet Navy between 1980 and 1991, Kulakov was the second of the class, commissioned at the end of 1981.