Russian Navy Explains 'Explosion' Sounds at Pacific Base

Residents in the city that is home to Russia's Pacific Fleet were woken during the night by explosions but were instructed by intelligence officers not to talk about the incident, it has been reported.

The claims came as Russia's military said the fleet's Gromky corvette had been involved in air defense training. One of the meanings of the Russian word "gromky" is "noisy."

Independent Russian language news outlet Astra reported that locals in the far eastern city of Vladivostok said they had heard blasts around 3.30 a.m. on Tuesday morning around the naval base.

It reported that one local had said that police, firefighters and "even the FSB have already been called. The whole house is awake!"

In the Lugovoi district of the city, a resident filmed an "unidentified flying object" which had been in the air "for a long time," Astra reported.

The outlet noted how the local politician Maksim Chikhunov had posted on Telegram that residents had been asked not to talk about the incident by officers from Russia' main intelligence service.

"In the morning, FSB officers came and questioned us," Chikhunov wrote, citing a resident. "The neighbor was told not to tell anyone about the incident." The politician said that residents noticed a strong smell like burning plastic.

Long headquartered in Vladivostok, the fleet now has a base about 30 miles away, at Fokino.

Later on Tuesday, the Russian Defense Ministry issued a statement that the crew of the Gromky corvette had conducted air defense training, which included a mock enemy air strike "on a critically important object of the fleet."

The vessel's air defense crew used its defense systems "to work out the algorithm of actions in repelling a simulated air attack," the statement said. Newsweek has contacted the Defense Ministry for comment.

Gromky is a Steregushchiy-class corvette which was launched in 2017 and commissioned in 2018 to serve in the Pacific Fleet. Foreign policy publication The National Interest reported in 2019 that it was built to keep pace with NATO's naval capabilities.

In June 2022, it took part in naval exercises in the Pacific Ocean as part of war games involving 40 warships and support vessels and 20 aircraft.

The drills come after military vessels from Russia and China operating near the Aleutian Islands last week were met by four U.S. Navy destroyers.

Meanwhile, Russia suffered setbacks last week when two of its vessels were targeted by Ukrainian drones in the Black Sea in quick succession.

A sea drone attack struck the Olenegorsky Gornyak, near Novorossiysk port in the southern Krasnodar region, a major navy base east of Russian-occupied Crimea. The next day, footage showed a sea drone skimming the water's surface in the Kerch Strait before striking the oil and chemical tanker SIG.