Russia sends Varyag missile ship on long-distance patrol

The Varyag missile ship of the Pacific Fleet (Russia) has been ordered to go on a long patrol in the ocean.
Cruiser Varyag
RIA Novosti on April 1 said that the Varyag missile cruiser of the Pacific Fleet of the Russian Navy was ordered to go on a long-term patrol in the ocean.

The head of the press department of the Pacific Fleet, Vladimir Matveev, said that the Varyag – the flagship of the Pacific Fleet left the port of Vladivostok to carry out a strategic cruiser mission as ordered.
Vladimir Matveev revealed that this long-distance mission of the Varyag missile ship will last for 2 months, the trip has been planned in advance and will comply with all regulations that the Russian Navy has entrusted.

The Varyag is expected to visit the seaports of 7 foreign countries on a trip lasting more than 60 consecutive days.
According to Matveyev, the purpose of the Russian Navy’s cruiser operations is to strengthen naval cooperation with countries in the Asia-Pacific region and be ready to deal with any arising situations when ordered.
Varyag is a Slava-class missile cruiser, designed for use as a ground attack warship with modern air-to-air capabilities.
The main anti-ship armament of the Slava-class ships consists of 16 supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles SS-N-12 Sandbox (P-500 Bazalt) carrying a conventional warhead weighing 1 ton or a nuclear warhead of 350kt. Its launch system is arranged in the front part of the ship, 4 clusters on the left, 4 clusters on the right (2 launchers each).

The missile is guided by active radar at the end of the journey, in the middle of the flight to the target it can receive technical information from Tu-95 strategic bombers, Kamov submarine hunting helicopters. Ka-25/27.
In addition, Varyag is also equipped with 2 clusters of 2 tubes of 9K33M “Osa-M” close-range air defense missile (NATO reporting name SA-N-4 “Gecko”) with a base of 40 missiles. This type of missile has a length of 3.2m, a diameter of 0.21m, a range of 15km, a combat altitude of 12km, a launch speed of up to 2.5Mach.