Terror threat 

Russia establishes five regional maritime counter-terrorist headquarters

Russian president Vladimir Putin has signed and enacted a decree that establishes five operational headquarters in maritime areas to organise, plan, and conduct counter-terrorism operations.

The five centres, which exclude any on the Baltic Sea or wider Arctic Ocean, consist of: Kaspiysk in Dagestan, North Caucasus, on the Caspian Sea; Murmansk in Northern Russia on the Bering Sea and Arctic Ocean; Petropavlovsk-Kamchatka in the Russian Far East on the Northern Pacific coast; Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk on Sakhalin Island, in the Sea of Okhotsk and close to northern Japan; and Simferopol in occupied Crimea, close to the Black Sea and obviously Ukraine.

None of the locations have existing defence or naval headquarters.