The Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov and its accompanying ships are planning to pass through the English Channel on their way to the Syrian coast, sparking no small level of hysteria because it comes amid US and British talk about military action against Syria and by extension against Russia.
So while the Russian trip isn’t unprecedented or anything, British officials are seeing it as “a show of force” as well as “posturing,” and are noting that Russian ships heading for Syria usually go through the Bosphorus instead of around the English Channel.
Which obviously isn’t possible in this case, because the Russian carrier is up in Murmansk, in the far north, and not in the Black Sea where it could pass through the Bosphorus into the Mediterranean. The ship will be going north of Scandanavia, and then down past Britain.
The Admiral Kuznetsov is going to be parked off the Syrian coast for 4-5 months, and will likely be used as an additional staging area from which Russian warplanes can launch airstrikes against the Nusra Front and ISIS. They do have air bases inside Syria, but they are still small and limited, with expansions planned.
they could always dispatch some navy ships to the channel for a counter show of force,
but i believe the British navy is off in another hemisphere at the moment conducting their own show of force to bully the Argentinians
The British navy? A pair of rowboats and a garbage scow…
Hmm, does my memory betray me, or hasn’t our (US) Government spent the past several years whining about Chinese threats against the free passage of US ships in international waters off the coasts of China and Iran? Oh yes, I forgot that an “exceptional” nation such as ours is immune from criticism that applies to everyone else. And so it goes.
Where is the Donald Duck? How did the Duck get from the Black sea to the Baltic sea?
Russia frees Assange? Times do change.