Soviet Navy had nearly 200 nuclear submarines in operation of which two-thirds were said to belong to the Northern Fleet. By 1996, only half were still in service. The 57th Naval Missile Aviation Division of Tu-22s and electronic warfare Tu-16s from the Baltic Fleet at Bykhov, Mogilev Oblast, in the Belorussian SSR transferred to the Northern Fleet in December 1991 as the 57th Combined Ship Aviation Division. The division commanded the 830th and 38th Shipborne Anti-Submarine Helicopter Regiments and the 279th Shipborne Fighter Aviation Regiment from Severomorsk-3 in Murmansk Oblast until disbanded on 1 May 1998. The 5th Naval Missile Aviation Division commanding the 524th and 574th Naval Missile Aviation Regiments. The 574th Regiment was based at Lakhta air base (Katunino), until disbanded in 2002. The 100th Independent Shipborne Fighter Aviation Regiment (in February 1993) and its personnel and equipment absorbed by the 279th Shipborne Fighter Aviation Regiment. On 12 August 2000, the Kursk submarine disaster gained international attention when the Kursk of the Northern Fleet perished in a torpedo accident during exercises in the Barents Sea near Murmansk Oblast, resulting in the deaths of 118 sailors. Beginning in the early 2000s, however, a renewed emphasis was placed on modernizing the Russian Navy, including the Northern Fleet. As argued in the Chatham House analysis: "Moscow's intentions for the Arctic are not Arctic-specific, but are related to the Kremlin's global ambitions for reviving Russia as a great power. Russia's force posture in the Arctic is informed by the changing geopolitical environment around its strained relations with the West". The importance attached to the Northern Fleet is illustrated by the fact that it constitutes its own district command within the Russian Armed Forces equal to the Armed Forces' other military districts. In January 2016, Defence Minister Sergey Shoygu announced that the 45th Air Force and Air Defence Army had been formed under control of the Northern Fleet in December 2015. Its territorial control center assumed combat duty in July 2018. Today both the 45th Air Force and Air Defence Army, as well as the 14th Army Corps, fall under the Northern Fleet Joint Strategic Command, which was established in 2014 and is a military-administered district of equal status to the other four military districts of the Russian Armed Forces. Its jurisdiction is primarily within the northern region of European Russia and the Arctic Ocean. The formal status of the Northern Fleet as