Russia shrugs off US fears over patrols by subs

A SENIOR Russian general yesterday shrugged off Washington’s concern about Cold War-style patrols of Russian nuclear submarines off the US coast, saying it was business as usual for Moscow to keep its navy in shape.

“I don’t know if it’s news to anyone,” Anatoly Nogovitsyn, Russia’s deputy chief of general staff, told a news conference. “The navy should not stay idle at its moorings.”

He was commenting on a report in the New York Times that said two nuclear-powered Russian attack submarines had been patrolling off the eastern seaboard of the US in a mission rare for post-Cold War times.