A flotilla of Russian surface ships successfully held anti-submarine drills in the Mediterranean Sea, a Russian Black Sea Fleet official said on Saturday.

Saturday saw Russian surface ships taking part in rocket firing drills aimed at destroying a simulated enemy submarine in the Mediterranean Sea, according to Russian Black Sea Fleet spokesman Vyacheslav Trukhachev.

He said that “the scheduled tactical exercise of a surface ship division of the Black Sea Fleet and the Russian Navy’s permanent force in the remote zone wrapped up in Mediterranean.”

“The ships practiced destroying an imaginary enemy submarine with rocket-propelled depth charges,” Trukhachev added.

He also said that after a simulated escort operation as well as drills to conduct anti-aircraft, anti-submarine and anti-sabotage defense, the Smetlivy guided missile destroyer (photo) performed rocket firing on an air target from with the Volna system.

Shortly after, the Smetlivy along with the Russian frigates Admiral Grigorovich and Admiral Essen successfully destroyed a sea target, Trukhachev said.

In March 2016, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that the Smetlivy destroyer of the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet departed from the country’s southwestern port city of Sevastopol to join Russia’s naval force in the Mediterranean later that month.

The Admiral Grigorovich and Admiral Essen frigates are designed for anti-ship and anti-submarine warfare as well as for air defense missions, operating both independently or as part of convoys and naval task forces.

In late April 2017, the Admiral Grigorovich detected a naval “mine”, evaded and destroyed it during drills in the Mediterranean, according to the Black Sea Fleet’s press service.