Russian Navy going back to the Med

Putin now with his sham election is finished is back to military power
moves. In the context of Arms sales to US foes like Chavez, Bear bomber
back in the air, and talk of ending conventional force treaties; this
guy is worth keeping a eye on.


Yahoo! News
Russian navy to start sorties in Mediterranean

By Guy FaulconbridgeWed Dec 5, 4:16 PM ET

Russia said on Wednesday it would start the first major navy sortie into
the Mediterranean since Soviet times, the latest move by an increasingly
assertive Moscow to demonstrate its military might.

"The aim of the sorties is to ensure a naval presence in tactically
important regions of the world ocean," Defense Minister Anatoly
Serdyukov told President Vladimir Putin, who wished the sailors well.
The rest of the meeting was closed.

Serdyukov said 11 ships, including an aircraft carrier, would take part
in the sortie and be backed up by 47 aircraft -- including strategic
bombers.

Buoyed by huge oil revenues, Russia under Putin has been boosting
military spending while at the same time using diplomacy to broaden
Moscow's influence.

Earlier this year Putin announced that long-range strategic bombers
would resume patrols around the world and Russia's long-range nuclear
forces have test-fired new missiles.

But analysts say the navy, once the focus of national pride and symbol
of the Soviet Union's military might, is still reeling from more than a
decade of underfunding.

A series of accidents -- such as the sinking of the Kursk nuclear
submarine in 2000 -- have hurt the Russian navy's reputation at home and
abroad.

Serdyukov said the navy's flagship aircraft carrier, the Admiral
Kuznetsov, and anti-submarine ships had set out for the Mediterranean on
Wednesday from the Northern Fleet's base in Severomorsk, in the Arctic
Circle.

Black Sea fleet ships and aircraft support would meet them in the
Mediterranean. He said military exercises would be held during the
sorties and that the group would visit six foreign states. He did not
name them.

He also said Northern Fleet would make sorties into the northern Atlantic.

Russia has long been talking about reviving a permanent naval base in
the Mediterranean. During the Cold War, the Soviet navy had a permanent
presence on the Mediterranean, using the Syrian port of Tartus as a
supply point.

(Editing by Elizabeth Piper)

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