On March 18, Russian Presidential Aide and Chairman of the Maritime Collegium, Nikolai Patrushev, warned that the conflict in West Asia is already spreading beyond the Persian Gulf.
In an interview with the Russian weekly newspaper Kommersant, Patrushev stated that “the conflict is already spreading beyond the Persian Gulf, and a notable example is the torpedoing of an Iranian frigate by a US submarine in the Indian Ocean. This is the first such incident in over forty years, since the Falklands War.”
Earlier, on March 4, the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena was sunk off the coast of Sri Lanka by an attack submarine from the US Navy. The IRIS Dena, part of the Iranian Navy’s Southern Fleet, was participating in a naval exercise hosted by India.
