Russian forces in the Mediterranean - Wk03/2023

Task Force Composition

As reported by OSINT at the morning of Jan-14

Weekly Brief
After five months without any follow up, the chance that Yasen class nuclear attack submarine Severodvisnk is still in the Mediterranean is very small. The submarine most likely departed the Mediterranean. A P8-A maritime patrol aircraft was observed on January 19th over the Ionian Sea, flying in a search pattern for three hours [a]. No NATO surface vessels were in this area at the time. It is possible the aircraft was tracking the Severodvinsk but it seems more probable that the P8-A was tracking a NATO submarine as an exercise.

Intelligence collection vessel Yury Ivanov was no longer present in Tartus, suggesting it is back at sea tracking NATO task forces,  the most important of the is the US Navy aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush which is present in the Adriatic Sea.

The frigate Admiral Kasatonov has not been observed for over a week, suggesting that is it also deployed on a longer mission tracking NATO vessels.

Daily Events

January 19th
Satellite imagery of the port of Tartus showed several Russian warships inside the port. These were identified as the Improved Kilo class submarine Krasnodar, the Admiral Gorshkov class frigate Admiral Kasatonov, the Buyam-M class corvette Orekhovo Zuyevo, an unidentified Steregushchy class corvette, a Aleksandrit class minehunter Vladimir Emelyanov and the fleet oiler Akademik Pashin [1].
Smoke coming from the Krasnodar indicates that her diesel engines were running. However, no tug boats were observed in the imagery and the boom defense was still deployed in the water, which indicates that the submarine was most likely holding tests and was not yet preparing to head out to sea.

January 20th
The frigate Admiral Gorshkov and her escorting fleet oiler Kama were reported northeast of the Azores [2], confirming that both vessels are heading towards South Africa and will not be joining the Mediterranean task force in the first coming weeks.

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