JUNEAU, Alaska – The Coast Guard Cutter Jarvis recently departed the remote northern Kamchatka peninsula, having completed three days of multinational exercises and goodwill exchanges with the Border Guard of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation Sept. 21-23.
Their visit was part of an ongoing working relationship between the Coast Guard Seventeenth District and the Northeast Border Guard Directorate. The two agencies meet regularly to coordinate joint fisheries enforcement efforts designed to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing occurring along shared maritime borders in the Bering Sea and North Pacific Ocean.
The Jarvis and the Border Guard patrol vessel Vorovskiy, conducted precise formation steaming on Sept. 20, followed by a search and rescue demonstration led by the Vorovskiy’s helicopter. After anchoring side-by-side overnight, the two vessels moored together at the pier in Petropavlosk to commence a series of formal and informal exchanges.
Coast Guard and Border Guard personnel conducted reciprocal tours of the Vorovskiy and Jarvis, and engaged in professional discussions regarding search and rescue and law enforcement.
Selected Jarvis crewmembers rose to the challenge of a soccer game against their well-equipped Russian shipmates and attended a formal reception aboard Jarvis hosted by the commanding officer. Honored guests included Lt. Gen. Rafael Daerbaev of the Russian Border Guard, Vladislav Skvortsov, the mayor of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy and senior U.S. Defense Attaché Office representatives.
Russian and U.S. officers noted the incredible progress made in official relationships between the Border Guard and Coast Guard, praising international cooperative enforcement as a model for continuing to improve diplomatic relations as well as accomplishing common maritime goals between the two nations.
Following the exercises, Jarvis began patrolling the North Pacific Ocean in support of laws prohibiting illegal high seas driftnet fishing; a destructive practice that depletes wide ocean swaths of marine life and impacts hundreds of local fishing-based economies all around the Pacific Rim.
