The U.S Coast Guard has revealed it spotted warships from a joint Russian Navy – Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy Surface Action group sailing approximately 75 nautical miles north of Kiska Island, Alaska.
The cutter Kimball first identified the Chinese guided-missile cruiser Renhai CG 10 earlier this month off the remote Kiska Island, according to a news release from the Coast Guard.
Four of the foreign ships in the group were later identified as Russian, including a navy destroyer, and three belonged to China, the news release stated.
The Russian and Chinese ships were sailing unhindered and unchallenged beyond American territorial waters, which extend 12 nautical miles from local shores.
A U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Kimball crewmember observing a foreign vessel in the Bering Sea, September 19, 2022. The ship was on a routine patrol in the Bering Sea when it encountered a People’s Republic of China Guided Missile Cruiser, Renhai CG 101, sailing approximately 75 nautical miles north of Kiska Island, Alaska. (U.S. Coast Guard)
File/ A picture taken on May 22, 2003 shows the Russian warship Marshal Shaposhnikov during exercises in the Indian Ocean. It was part of a group spotted recently off Kiska Island. (SEBASTIAN D’SOUZA/AFP via Getty Images)
However, the ships entered the United States’ Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which stretches 200 nautical miles away from the American coasts.
In response to the joint Russian-Chinese naval presence, the U.S. Coast Guard is pledging to monitor and meet the vessels of nations it called “strategic competitors.”
“The Kimball crew is now operating under Operation Frontier Sentinel, a Seventeenth Coast Guard District operation designed to meet presence with presence when strategic competitors operate in and around U.S. waters,” the news release stated. The first vessel was spotted on Sept. 19.
A Coast Guard C-130 Hercules proceeded to assist the Kimball in its own response to the Russian and Chinese naval patrol, according to the news release, which was published Monday.
USNI News reports Coast Guard cutters deployed to the Bering Sea and North Pacific Ocean also encountered Chinese naval vessels, including a surface action group transiting approximately 50 miles off the Aleutian Island chain, in September 2021.
“While the formation has operated in accordance with international rules and norms,” said Rear Adm. Nathan Moore, Seventeenth Coast Guard District commander in the release, “we will meet presence-with-presence to ensure there are no disruptions to U.S. interests in the maritime environment around Alaska.”
Sailors move a Russian Ka-27PL military helicopter on the deck of the Marshal Shaposhnikov anti-submarine destroyer during the ‘Vostok-2022’ military exercises at the Peter the Great Gulf of the Sea of Japan outside the city of Vladivostok on September 5, 2022.(KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty)
The Russian Navy – PLAN surface action group consists of Russian Navy destroyer RFS Marshal Shaposhnikov (543), corvettes RFS Sovershennyy (333), RFS Gromkiy (335) and RFS Hero of the Russian Federation Aldar Tsydenzhapov (339), and replenishment ship Pechanga, while the PLAN contingent consist of Nanchang, frigate CNS Yancheng (546) and replenishment ship CNS Dongpinghu (902).
The two navies have been working together to carry out a joint naval patrol in the Pacific Ocean, the Russian Defense Ministry announced Sept. 15.
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