Three Russian amphibious ships practice mine-laying, artillery firing off Crimean coast

The crews of the Russian Navy's big landing ships "Yamal," "Caesar Kunikov," and "Orsk" have conducted a mine-laying exercise in a Black Sea offshore training range.

"Under the terms of the exercise, the crews of the big landing ships carried out the laying of training sea mines on the routes of possible actions of the conditional enemy forces near the Crimean coast," Interfax reports, citing the fleet's press service.

The big landing ships crews also carried out artillery firing against sea and air targets, as well as scoring firing "to destroy visible coastal targets".

"In turn, the fleet's minesweepers ‘Ivan Golubets’, ‘Kovrovets’ and ‘Georgiy Kurbatov’ carried out trawl deployment, reconnaissance search and destruction of a minesweeping section," the fleet said.

The fleets said the minesweepers also conducted artillery training exercises.