Russia beefs up Baltic Fleet amid NATO tensions : reports | Reuters
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-defence-baltic-sweden-idUSKCN12Q1HB
Russia is sharply upgrading the firepower of its Baltic Fleet by adding warships armed with long-range cruise missiles to counter NATO’s build-up in the region, Russian media reported on Wednesday.
There was no official confirmation from Moscow, but the reports will raise tensions in the Baltic, already heightened since Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, and cause particular alarm in Poland and Lithuania which border Russia’s base there.
The reported deployment comes as NATO is planning its biggest military build-up on Russia’s borders since the Cold War to deter possible Russian aggression.
Russia’s daily Izvestia newspaper cited a military source as saying that the first two of five ships, the Serpukhov and the Zeleny Dol, had already entered the Baltic Sea and would soon become part of a newly formed division in Kaliningrad, Russia’s European exclave sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania.
Another source familiar with the situation told the Interfax news agency that the two warships would be joining the Baltic Fleet in the coming days.
“With the appearance of two small missile ships armed with the #Kalibr cruise missiles the Fleet’s potential targeting range will be significantly expanded in the northern European military theater,” the source told Interfax.
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Izvestia said Russia’s Baltic Fleet would probably receive a further three such small warships armed with the same missiles by the end of 2020.
It said the Baltic Fleet’s coastal defenses would also be beefed up with the Bastion and Bal land-based missile systems. The Bastion is a mobile defense system armed with two anti-ship missiles with a range of up to 300 km (188 miles). The Bal anti-ship missile has a similar range.
