Janes:
Three Russians warships, including two armed with long-range land-attack cruise missiles, have been sent to the Mediterranean.
Russia’s TASS news agency reported on 5 October that the Black Sea Fleet’s Buyan-M class corvettes Serpukhov and Zelyony Dol had left their home port of Sevastopol on 4 October and were en route to the Mediterranean.
A day later TASS reported that the Nanuchka-III class (Project 1234) missile corvette Mirazh had sailed from Sevastopol for the Mediterranean.
“In the Mediterranean Sea, the Serpukhov and Zelyony Dol are set to join the permanent operational task force in the distant maritime zone on a planned rotational basis,” TASS quoted Russian Black Sea Fleet spokesman Nikolai Voskresensky as saying.
The Russian Navy has maintained a task group off Syria since September 2015.
Turkish ship observers confirmed the southbound passage of Serpukhov and Zelyony Dol , with photographs of them passing through the Bosphorus appearing on social media on 5 October.
Commissioned in December 2015, the two Buyan-Ms operated in the Eastern Mediterranean for just over a month from mid-August and carried out a strike against targets in Syria on 19 August using Kalibr NK cruise missiles. The missiles have a range of more than 1,500 km.
Mirazh does not have land-attack missiles, but is normally armed with P-120 Malakhit (SS-N-9 ‘Siren’) anti-ship missiles….
