Royal Navy Tracks Last Russian Evacuation Convoy Through English Channel
On Tuesday, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force tracked a force of Russian Navy warships and military cargo ships through the English Channel. The Russian convoy may be the final run to complete the evacuation of Russia's naval base at Tartus, Syria, and will deliver additional weaponry that can be used on the front in Ukraine.
Overnight March 15-16, Belgian Navy patrol vessel Castor tracked the Russian destroyer Severomorsk during a southbound transit through the North Sea. On Sunday, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary supply ship RFA Tidesurge escorted Severomorsk westbound through the English Channel and into the Atlantic, where the Russian warship rendezvoused with a convoy returning from Syria.
HMS Somerset and HMS Cattistock were spotted Monday escorting the joined-up Russian convoy back through the Channel, headed east. Open-source analysts have identified the other vessels as the Ropucha-class landing ship Aleksandr Shabalin, the ro/ro military cargo ship Sparta IV - a familiar presence on the Tartus-Russia run - and the freighter Siyanie Severa. This sealift convoy was spotted departing Syria on March 2, laden with Russian military equipment from the ongoing evacuation.
In early December, U.S.-designated terror group Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) ousted longtime Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, driving Assad's Russian military backers into retreat. Under Assad, Russia held a 49-year lease on the port of Tartus, home of the only Russian naval base in the Mediterranean. Under HTS, the terms of Russia's ability to stay at the base have been up for negotiation, and Russia's military has been extracting shiploads of vehicles and containerized cargo from the port since January.
Russia has been in talks with Syria's new Islamist leadership about a revised status of forces agreement, and has received positive signs from HTS about maintaining Russian base infrastructure - in exchange for continued Russian support for the battered Syrian economy. No final deals have been announced, but a sanctioned Russian tanker recently got underway from Murmansk with a load of one million barrels of crude oil for Syria's Baniyas refinery, replacing the Iranian supplies upon which al-Assad relied.
"Russia is using fuel as rent money for its maintained armed presence in port Tartus, Syria," observed TankerTrackers.com, which first reported the shipment.