<
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/01/russian-spy-ship-fire-exposes-poor-state-of-mediterranean-fleet-say-experts>
"A fire onboard a Russian spy ship off the coast of Syria has underlined the
poor state of the Russian navy as its toehold in the Mediterranean hangs in the
balance, analysts and western security services say.
The 55-year-old
Kildin got into trouble off the Syrian coast last Thursday,
when flames and thick black smoke could be seen billowing from its funnel and
it hoisted two black balls up its mast, signifying that the crew no longer had
control of the vessel.
The ship notified a nearby Togolese-flagged cargo freighter, the
Milla Moon,
that it was unable to steer and warned it to stay at least 2km away. The
Russian crew assembled on the
Kildin’s aft deck and uncovered the lifeboats,
but did not ask for help, and after five hours fighting the fire the
Kildin
restarted its engines and got under way again.
According to western security services, the ship was in the eastern
Mediterranean to monitor events in Syria after the fall in December of the
Moscow ally Bashar al-Assad, as the Russian navy began to move military
equipment out of the part of the Tartus port it controls.
The western sources argued that the
Kildin fire, after another blaze two
months earlier on the Russian missile frigate the
Admiral Gorshkov, revealed
Russia’s maritime presence in the area to be in a state of disrepair and
disarray. They said that, at the same time that the
Kildin was in distress,
two other Russian naval vessels, the landing ships
Ivan Gren and the
Aleksandr Otrakovsky were also adrift temporarily without control of
navigation.
Michael Kofman, an expert on the Russian military at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, said that mishaps on Russian naval vessels were nothing
new, and not confined to the Mediterranean.
“The Russian navy has historically struggled with maintenance and readiness
issues. Fires are not uncommon. Operations are undoubtedly taking a toll on an
ageing Russian fleet, which lacks sufficient maintenance and support
facilities,” Kofman said."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
