By Mark Trevelyan
(Reuters) -The Russian and Chinese navies have practiced hunting and destroying an enemy submarine in the Sea of Japan, Russia’s defence ministry said on Wednesday, days after U.S. President Donald Trump said he had moved two U.S. nuclear subs closer to Russia.
Russia said the exercise involved Chinese Y-8 anti-submarine aircraft and Il-38 planes from Russia’s Pacific Fleet, as well as helicopter crews.
“As a result of effective joint actions, the ‘enemy’ submarine was promptly detected and mock-destroyed,” the defence ministry said.
“After practicing anti-submarine tasks, the crews of the Russian and Chinese ships thanked each other for their fruitful work.”
Trump said his submarine order last Friday was made in response to what he called “highly provocative” remarks by former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev about the risk of war between the nuclear-armed adversaries.
The Kremlin this week played down the significance of Trump’s announcement, saying U.S. submarines are on constant combat duty anyway, and said that “everyone should be very, very careful with nuclear rhetoric”.
The episode came at a delicate moment, with Trump threatening to impose new sanctions on Russia and buyers of its oil, including India and China, unless President Vladimir Putin agrees by Friday to end the 3-1/2-year war in Ukraine.
The anti-submarine exercise was part of a wider series of Russian-Chinese naval drills over the past week.
The two countries, which signed a “no-limits” strategic partnership shortly before Russia went to war in Ukraine in 2022, conduct regular military exercises to rehearse coordination between their armed forces and send a deterrent signal to adversaries.
(Reporting by ReutersEditing by Alexandra Hudson)
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