New ship to guard Kazakhstan's Caspian Sea border

Kazakhstan’s Border Service has added a new ship to guard the country's border at the Caspian Sea, Tengrinews reports citing IA Novosti-Kazakhstan.

The National Security Committee of Kazakhstan got the ship off the plant and made unveiled it on July 11. "A new Aibar-type border ship procured by the National Security Committee of Kazakhstan from Uralsk Plant Zenit (a subsidiary of Kazakhstan Engineering national company) has been launched. The border ship is named after Kazakhstan's city of miners - "Karaganda". It is designed to protect the state border of Kazakhstan at the Caspian Sea," the press service of the Committee said.

After that the ship had to undergo a range of various tests and was finally put into exploitation of the border service in September. 

The ship has improved tactical-technical characteristics. It is equipped with modern surveillance systems, electronic monitoring systems and remote control system of 12.7mm NSVT machine gun.

The maximum cruising capacity of the ship is seven days. In addition, the ship is fitted with a rigid-inflatable motor boat and an elevator for team landing.

Necessary testing activities are being planned at the moment. Putting the ship into service of marine border units is scheduled for September 2014.

Writing by Dinara Urazova, editing by Tatyana Kuzmina