An extremely rare visitor to the docks will have a few heads turning in the port today as Falmouth welcomes the state-of-the-art Russian warship the Soobrazitelny.

The Steregushchy class corvette is the first Russian warship to berth in Falmouth for decades.

The 2,200-ton warship was due to arrive at 9am for a day-long visit before sailing in the evening.

The Soobrazitelny is arriving from Cork, in Ireland, where she helped to celebrate a naval festival.

Although the Russian Navy designates the ship a corvette NATO calls the ship a frigate because of her size.

Falmouth Packet:

The warship, which was built in St Petersburg, is part of the Russian Navy’s Baltic Fleet. The 27-knot plus vessel went into service last year. This class of ship is used for littoral zone operations, engagement of enemy submarines and surface ships, and gun support of landing operations.

To jam and protect itself against homing missiles the Soobrazitelny features a radio electronic suppression system.

The system actively jams incoming missiles and can guide an enemy warhead to a decoy target. A KA-27PL anti-submarine helicopter is based on the corvette to seek and attack submarines.