Flight deck of the Russian Aircraft Carrier Adm. Kuznetsov.In an article in the December 6 Red Star may throw a little more light on what we are seeing/hearing over the ether now and for the next few weeks. Translation courtesy of the Old Crow.
The Russian Navy is re-establishing its presence on a permanent basis in various areas/regions of the world's oceans. The Minister of Defence, Anatolij Serdyukov, in the course of a working meeting within the Kremlin, informed the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, that from the 5th December 2007 until 3rd February 2008, a deployment of ships into the North Eastern Atlantic and into the Mediterranean has been scheduled.
The aim of the deployment is to guarantee a Naval presence and to engender conditions for the safety of Russian commercial shipping. A group of ships left Severomorsk at mid-day on Wednesday 5th. Included in this group is the heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union, Kuznetsov, Large AntiSubmarine Ships Admiral Levchenko, and Admiral Chabaenko, the Tanker Sergej Osipov, and the rescue tug Nikolaj Chiker. The Black Sea Fleet detachment includes the Guards missile cruiser Moskva, the large Tanker Ivan Bubnov, the medium Tanker Iman and another rescue tug. In all, four warships and seven auxiliary vessels have been assigned for this event from the Northern, Black Sea and Baltic Fleets.
MoD Anatolij Serdyukov comments in Red Star appears to confirm the reporting in the UK Telegraph article yesterday that the Russian Navy is stepping up its patrols worldwide which we haven't seen since the Cold War days.
Our good friends over at the Information Dissemination Blog has additional details on this story at http://informationdissemination.blogspot.com/2007/12/brief-analysis-of-russian-mediterranean.html.