The announcement appeared intended to punctuate Russia’s effort to
position itself as an increasingly decisive broker in resolving the
antigovernment uprising in Syria, Russia’s last ally in the Middle East
and home to Tartus, its only foreign military base outside the former
Soviet Union. The announcement also came a day after Russia said it was
halting new shipments of weapons to the Syrian military until the
conflict settled down.
Russia has occasionally sent naval vessels on maneuvers in the eastern
Mediterranean, and it dispatched an aircraft-carrying battleship, the
Admiral Kuznetsov, there for maneuvers with a few other vessels from
December 2011 to February 2012. There were rumors in recent weeks that
the Russians planned to deploy another naval force near Syria.
But the unusually large size of the force announced on Tuesday was
considered a message, not just to the region but also to the United
States and other nations supporting the rebels now trying to depose
Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad.
Tartus consists of little more than a floating refueling station and
some small barracks. But any strengthened Russian presence there could
forestall Western military intervention in Syria.
The Russian announcement got a muted response in Washington. “Russia
maintains a naval supply and maintenance base in the Syrian port of
Tartus,” said Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security
Council. “We currently have no reason to believe this move is anything
out of the ordinary, but we refer you to the Russian government for more
details.”
The announcement came as a delegation of Syrian opposition figures was
visiting Moscow to gauge if Russia would accept a political transition
in Syria that excludes Mr. Assad. It also coincided with a flurry of
diplomacy by Kofi Annan, the special Syria envoy from the United Nations
and the Arab League, who said
Mr. Assad had suggested a new approach for salvaging Mr. Annan’s
sidelined peace plan during their meeting on Monday in Damascus.
While the Kremlin has repeatedly opposed foreign military intervention
in Syria, Russian military officials have hinted at a possible role in
Syria for their naval power. The ships have been presented as a means
either to evacuate Russian citizens or to secure the fueling station at
Tartus.
A statement by the Defense Ministry said ships had embarked from ports
of three fleets: those of the Northern, the Baltic Sea and the Black
Sea, and would meet for training exercises in the Mediterranean and
Black Seas. Taking part, the statement said, would be two Black Sea
Fleet landing craft that can carry marines: the Nikolai Filchenkov and
the Tsezar Kunikov.
Russia’s Interfax news agency cited an unnamed military official as
saying that an escort ship, the Smetlivy, would stop in Tartus for
resupplying in three days — though it had presumably recently left its
home port of Sevastopol, in the Black Sea.
Another contingent, from the Arctic Ocean base of Severomorsk, in the
Murmansk Fjord, will take longer to arrive. That convoy includes three
landing craft with marines escorted by an antisubmarine ship, the
Admiral Chabanenko.
The voyage to the Mediterranean was unrelated to the Syrian conflict,
the official said, but the boats laden with marines would stop in Tartus
to “stock up on fuel, water and food.”
Visits on Tuesday by Mr. Annan to Iran, the Syrian government’s most
important regional ally, and Iraq, Syria’s neighbor to the east, which
fears a sectarian spillover from the conflict, came as a deadline of
July 20 approaches. That is when the United Nations Security Council is
to decide whether to renew the mission of 300 observers in Syria charged
with monitoring the introduction of Mr. Annan’s peace plan. The
observers’ work was suspended nearly a month ago because it was too
dangerous.
At a news conference in Tehran, Mr. Annan reiterated his view that the
Iranians had a role to play in resolving the conflict, despite
objections from the United States. Mr. Annan also said Mr. Assad had
proposed altering the peace proposal so that the most violent areas of
the country would be pacified first. The current plan calls for an
immediate cessation of all violence everywhere as a first step.
“He made a suggestion of building an approach from the ground up in some
of the districts where we have extreme violence — to try and contain
the violence in these districts and, step by step, build up and end the
violence across the country,” Mr. Annan told reporters in Tehran.
There was no immediate word on whether the suggested new approach would
be accepted by Mr. Assad’s opponents. But in Moscow, a delegation from
the Syrian National Council, the umbrella opposition group in exile,
suggested they had no interest in engaging with him.
“What brings together the opposition today is our consensus on the need
to topple Assad’s regime and build a new political system,” Bassma
Kodmani, a member of the delegation, said at a news conference in
Moscow.
The delegation members, who are to meet on Wednesday with Foreign
Minister Sergey V. Lavrov, also said they would not ask that Russia
grant Mr. Assad asylum — something Russian officials have said they are
not considering anyway.
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