Russia’s flagship, the Admiral Kuznetsov is deploying from Murmansk (Russia’s ice-free port on the Arctic Sea) to the Mediterranean Sea where it will operate out of the Syrian port of Tartus. Apparently Russia and Syria are talking about a Russian naval base going there. Check out the Kuznetsov:
Robert Farley has some analysis. Note that Israel had been deeply involved in upgrading the Georgian military, a relationship the Israelis moved to scale back when they saw the risk of Georgia-Russia war breaking out, hoping to avoid a backlash from Russia. I’ll just observe for now that a downward spiral in US-Russian relations seems much more likely to harm the interests of the United States, of Russia, and of various other countries (Israel today, who knows tomorrow) than it does to actually help Georgia.
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