Russian submarine off Sicily?

Interesting movements in the Strait of Sicily.

Yesterday and today we recorded unusual movements near Malta, at least three separate missions conducted by USNavy Boeing P-8As which took off from NAS Sigonella.

What could these missions be due to?

Some authoritative twitter accounts (@CovertShores and @KaptainLOMA ) agree that these missions are aimed at detecting a Russian submarine that would be in the area.

There are two hypotheses:

it would be the Magadan, an Improved Kilo-II class, delivered to the Russian navy in 2022

Maritime Patrol Aircraft have been busy this week, from Gibraltar to the Strait of Sicily and now Malta.

I suspect that Kilo class submarine Magadan has arrived in the Mediterranean and is being tracked as it moves towards Tartus. https://t.co/KnDf3S7khO
— Frederik Van Lokeren (@KaptainLOMA) September 2, 2022

it would be a nuclear-powered submarine (Akula class, or Sierra-I/II or Victor-III classes:

***BREAKING***#OSINT indicates that #Russia has sent a nuclear submarine to the Mediterranean. Playing cat and mouse with NATO, context #Ukraine

Nuclear submarines are the Russian Navy's most credible assetshttps://t.co/m3QzfHjQVH
— H I Sutton (@CovertShores) September 2, 2022