Russia Has Assembled a Fleet of Landing Ships in Tartus, Syria

Russia’s Northern fleet has 6 large landing ships (above 1000 tons) and its Baltic fleet has 4. They have each sent 3 of them to Tartus, Syria so that now the Northern and Baltic fleets only have 4 landing ships available combined, while 6 (!) are parked in Syria, a stone-throw away from the Black Sea.

The Black Sea Fleet has 7 large landing ships, so if the 6 ships in Tartus move there its amphibious landing capacity will be doubled.

This isn’t any kind of secret, the Russian military channel Zvezda TV is reporting about it openly (not that half a dozen ships can be hidden) and placing it in the context of “exercises”. Will Russia be conducting giant landing exercises in Syria? I doubt it. So then it was a “sailing” exercise?

Behind almost 6,000 nautical miles. And now, off the coast of Syria, there are six large landing ships of the Northern and Baltic Fleets “Pyotr Morgunov”, “George the Victorious”, “Olenegorsky Miner”, “Korolev”, “Minsk” and “Kaliningrad”.The path was not close and difficult – around Europe to the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea.

This is unprecedented. 

We can talk about whether the shift of Russian military power to the West and to the Mediterranean — aka closer to Ukraine is a “feint”, a “bluff”, “pressure”, “diplomacy-booster”, “ultimatum-booster”, or a buildup for escalation and live war. We can also debate how far along the redeployment is. What is not up for debate is that such a western buildup exists. For what purposes nobody knows 100%.

To pass the Bosphorus Strait Russian warships must under the Montreux Convention give the Turks a notice 8 days in advance, so if this fleet of landing ships will be headed for Sevastopol we will know before they even leave Tartus.

Russia has another 4 large landing ships in its Pacific Fleet, which means that two-thirds of the large landing ships in its navy are now in the Eastern Mediterranean or the Black Sea.

Six landing ships of the Northern and Baltic fleets (Pyotr Morgunov, Georgy the Pobedonosets, Olenegorsky miner, Korolev, Minsk and Kaliningrad) arrived at the Russian naval base in Tartus. pic.twitter.com/p7QYYb4g0k

— Spriter (@spriter99880) February 4, 2022