Last week, we saw a Russian convoy consisting of two Russian Navy Northern Fleet amphibious vessels, BDK-031 “Otrakovsky” and BDK-010 “Ivan Gren” and the Baltic Fleet tanker “Kola”, depart from the Baltic Sea and head for Syria.
This seems to mark the return of the so-called “Syrian Express,” the naval route between Russia and Syria via the Mediterranean. This is likely due to the fact that the Black Sea route is now too dangerous for Russian special cargo due to the threat of Ukrainian naval drones.
We do not know what the two ships are carrying, but it is likely that they are weapons.
The Russian flotilla is currently off the coast of Algeria and is proceeding east at a speed of about 11 knots.
At this time, we have no confirmation that it is being escorted by the frigate Admiral Grigorovich, which had escorted a similar convoy from Syria to Russia during its crossing of the Mediterranean two weeks ago.
UPDATE 29th March
From what can be seen from the satellite images, the three ships do not appear to be escorted.
If the uks were bold enough, they would position their naval drones in the med such that they are in range to target the ships before they get to syria.