The Barents Observer this weekend reported about the three Northern Fleet warships aborting their voyage and sailing out of the Baltic Sea.
The nuclear-powered submarine Tambov, the destroyer Admiral Levchenko and the landing vessel Ivan Gren were all supposed to line up on display at the Main naval parade in Kronstadt.
Steaming north, the vessels are already outside Norway on return to their bases on the coast of the Kola Peninsula.
Russia has now made the cancellation of main event official. The city administration of Kronstadt, the small island outside St. Petersburg where Vladimir Putin together with the Navy Commanders use to oversee the big warships, got a short SMS message:
“I inform you that there will be no naval parade in Kronstadt. The rest of the festive events will take place according to the plan,” the text said according to Novye Izvestia.
The newspaper reports that only 12 smaller vessels will take part in the event, to be anchored in- and at the berths along the Neva River in the centre of St. Petersburg.
The big warship parade in Kronstadt has been arranged annually since 2017, the year Putin by Decree reestablished the pre-1980 Navy Day as an official holiday. Celebrations take place the last Sunday in July, this year on the 28th.