Two Russian attack submarines are considered to have failed their secret mission in international waters after being detected by the United States and Canada, a report said on Thursday.
"If the United States and Canada really detected the foreign submarines, that means they unmasked them. This represents the failure of their military mission," the Interfax news agency quoted a source close to the matter as saying.
"It's unlikely the submarine crew will be congratulated under the circumstances," the source said.
"One of the markers of the crew's successful completion of a military mission on board a nuclear-powered submarine is the secrecy of the undertaking."
Interfax gave no further details over the source's identity.
Canadian aircraft used to hunting Soviet submarines during the Cold War are now tracking the two Russian attack subs as they moved north after being detected last week off the US coast, an official said Wednesday.
"They're in international waters" in the North Atlantic, a spokesman for Canadian Defense Minister Peter MacKay, told AFP. "They're allowed to be there. But our job is to ensure that our coastal perimeter and waters are respected."
The Pentagon last week said one of the two Russian nuclear-powered Akula class vessels had been parked in international waters some 200 miles (320 kilometers) off the US coast. The exact location of the other was unclear.
US officials said their presence was not cause for concern and they posed no threat to the United States.
The episode, however, echoed the cat-and-mouse maneuvers of the Soviet and US militaries during the Cold War when Moscow and Washington routinely used submarines to gather intelligence and track each other's fleet movements.
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