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The Russian Northern Fleet (Russian: Северный флот, Severny Flot) is an operational-strategic part of the Russian Navy. It is the youngest of the Russian fleet, established in 1933.
The fleet's headquarters are in the closed town Severomorsk, where the main base and administrative centre for several bases located throughout the Kola Gulf are located.
The Northern Fleet is the most powerful of Russia’s four fleets. About two thirds of all the Russian Navy's nuclear force is based there. The fleet consists of nuclear-powered missile and torpedo submarines, missile warships, aircraft carriers and anti-submarine ships. Russia’s only operating aircraft carrier, “Admiral Kuznetsov”, belongs to the Northern Fleet. The flagship of the Northern Fleet is the nuclear-powered large guided missile cruiser Pyotr Veliky.
In 2008, the Russian Navy resumed its presence on the world’s oceans after several years of low activity. Northern Fleet vessels operated in the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean and the Caribbean Sea.
New Commander of the Northern Fleet?
Vice Admiral Aleksandr Vitko (Photo VostokMedia)
Head of the Armed Forces in North-East Russia Vice Admiral Aleksandr Vitko has been appointed Commander of the Russian Northern Fleet, a Russian news agency reports.
According to the news agency Vostok Media, Vice Admiral Vitko today told a radio station on Kamchatka that he has been appointed new Commander of the Russian Fleet by President Dmitry Medvedev.
Vitko will leave Kamchatka in just a few days, he said to the radio station.
No other Russian media has so far had any reports about the change in leadership in Northern Fleet Head Quarters in Severomorsk.
The current Commander of the Northern Fleet, Admiral Nikolay Maksimov, was appointed in November 2007, as BarentsObserver then reported.
