Both units left the Baltic Sea in early February, where they were escorted by the Royal Danish Navy frigate HDMS Triton class Thetis, and in the North Sea they were accompanied by German patrol boats Bamberg and Neustadt.
Russia had no submarine in the Mediterranean Sea since January 3. On that day, it was left by B-261 Novorossyjsk, who, after passing through the Strait of Gibraltar, headed north towards the Baltic Sea. Previously, this ship was stationed in the Syrian port of Tartus, which the Russians left in December after the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime.
This erstwhile Russian naval base on the Syrian coast is besides well known to the crew of the Krasnodar ship, which launched respective maneuvering missiles for the muslim State in Iraq and Levant (ISIL) close Palmyra in central Syria in the summertime of 2017.
According to the Italian portal Itamilradar, tracking the movement of aircraft, ships and ships in the Mediterranean, it is unclear whether this submarine will carry out a ‘demonstration’ cruise or operate usually in the Mediterranean.
The second script has small chance of success, since the failure of the Tartus base means that any deployment of a Russian submarine in the Mediterranean will gotta stay at sea, with the anticipation of only short stops in friendly ports, possibly in Algeria or Libya, granted Itamilradar.
Tartus was for Moscow the only object outside Russia that was able to keep its submarines with diesel-electric power, which are cheaper and frequently quieter than nuclear-powered ships, but require regular refueling. This diesel-electric drive is equipped with Krasnodar.
"In practice, Russian conventional-powered submarines spend most of their time in port. This makes their permanent presence in the Mediterranean now untenable," said a Belgian naval officer and naval expert Frederik Van Lokeren on the Navalnews manufacture portal in January.
