MOSCOW

The Russian Pacific Fleet held the Finval-2023 military exercise in the Bering and Chukchi seas, the Defense Ministry said Thursday.

More than 10,000 servicemen and 50 units of military equipment, including warships and aircraft, are engaged in the drill, it said in a statement.

The goal is to train the protection of communications of the Northern Sea Route and search and attack of submarines of a conditional enemy, it said.

"The crews of the ships practiced joint maneuvering, evading the attack of an underwater enemy and its conditional destruction with the use of marine anti-submarine weapons systems," it noted.

The Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy Admiral Nikolay Evmenov supervised the exercises.