SOVIET FLEET

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19584, 8 June 1926, Page 7

SOVIET FLEET

WORLD TOUR PROPOSED MANOEUVRING IN BALTIC DANGERS FROM BRITAIN. LONDON, June 6. The Riga correspondent of the “Times” reports that Moscow announces that a Red squadron, consisting of a battleship, two cruisers, and some destroyers, will make a voyage round the world this summer, visiting Stettin, Portsmouth, Toulon, Genoa, Alexandria, Calcutta, Nagasaki, San Francisco and Panama. The fleet has begun exercises in tho Baltic. The special order emphasises that the chief object of the manoeuvres consists in testing the defences of the Leningrad approaches, and to call special attention to the co-ordination of the fleet, air, and coast defences. Coni-mander-in-Chief Zofu, in urging reinforcement of the Red Navy, stresses the fact that Britain is able to penetrate the Baltic and creep up to Kronstadt. He recalls the action of the Great Powers in 1923, when they refused to consent to the bottling up of tho Baltic for the Baltic Powers, and adds: 44 The British naval visits to the Baltic are certainly aggressive. She is trying to utilise the Baltic States in order to strengthen her influence against Russia. ”