A US senior defense official said on Wednesday that there were two Russian attack submarines seen to have been cruising in the Atlantic off the East Coast of the US.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell released a statement that this is not alarming as the Russians were only “operating in international waters” and were behaving in a responsible way.

The probable cause for the semi-alarm was the fact that it has been years since Russia has operated near the US seaboard. What it means is that Russia is able to patrol and do expeditionary operations once again.

Russia has recently been a partner in anti-piracy operations around the world. And last year the Russian Navy conducted a “tour around the world,” pulling into ports throughout Latin America.

So the bottomline remains that there is “no need to overreact”, as the senior defense official said.