Russia’s Most Modern Warship And Its Escorts Have Entered The Caribbean Sea

The Admiral Gorshkov transiting through the Panama Canal yesterday. 10/https://t.co/l4ha2tsr5Y pic.twitter.com/ldMluEYjzo

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) June 18, 2019

“It is assumed that in June the ship will carry out tasks in the Caribbean for some time,” an unnamed “informed source” told Russian media outlet Interfax, according to a story on June 18, 2019. “It is expected that he [Admiral Gorshkov] will go to one of the ports of Cuba.”

But the bigger question is whether or not Russia will send the frigate to Venezuela, where the Kremlin continues to support dictatorial President Nicolas Maduro, who has been in a protracted political standoff with opposition leader Juan Guaido since January 2019. The United States and a significant number of Latin American countries, along with others around the world, have recognized Guaido as the legitimate head of government. Maduro, with substantial support from its own international partners, chiefly Russia and Cuba, has refused to step aside and has brushed off attempts to depose him more forcefully.

The crisis continues, though it has largely faded from international headlines. But if Admiral Gorshkov sails into a Venezuelan port it is almost certain to draw a rebuke from the United States and could lead to a new surge in tensions in the region. The U.S. government was strongly criticizing Russian military deployments to the Latin American country even before recognizing Guaido’s authority. It notably responded very angrily to the Russian Air Force’s deployment of two Tu-160 Blackjack strategic bombers, along with various other supporting aircraft and personnel, to Venezuela in December 2018.

The Admiral Gorshkov, which only entered service in July 2018, is one of the most advanced ships in the Russian Navy and a stop in Venezuela would be sure to turn heads, especially in the United States. Among its other features, the ship is one of the first to carry the Poliment-Redut air defense system, which consists of the Poliment phased array radar and the Redut surface-to-air missile system, a navalized derivative of the ground-based S-350. This system only completed state trials weeks before the frigate left on its worldwide cruise.

The frigate also has 16 vertical launch cells capable of accommodating the Kalibr land-attack cruise missile. Kalibr is a combat-proven weapon, which gives the ship a real long-range land attack capability. The vertical launch system array can also fire the Oniks supersonic anti-ship cruise missile. There are plans to integrate the hypersonic Zircon anti-ship missile onto the ships in the future.

The ship also has some of the most modern sensors, including additional surface search and fire control radars beyond Poliment phased array, anywhere in the Russian Navy, as well as relatively new electronic warfare suite. It reportedly has the 5P-42 Filin countermeasure system, as well. This consists of multiple high-power strobe lights, as seen in the video below, which are intended to disorient and nauseate enemy personnel and blind and confuse sensors on hostile ships and aircraft, especially at night.

But if Admiral Gorshkov, and the rest of its flotilla, go straight to Cuba and makes no other stops in the region, its presence is still unlikely to go unnoticed by the U.S. government. It is the latest example of a larger trend on the part of the Kremlin to reinvigorate its relationship with the regime in Havana and ensure it has a firm base of operations in the United States’ backyard.

Though the Russian government has been pursuing these policies for the better part of the last decade, the desire to ensure firm relationships with countries in the Western Hemisphere became even more pronounced after 2014, amid international criticism over its seizure of Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula and active involvement in a conflict in that country’s eastern Donbass region. The United States and NATO, in particular, subsequently stepped up military activities along Russia’s borders in Europe, which the Kremlin routinely complains about.

So, being able to needle the United States in the same way in return has only become more important for Russia. In 2014, Russian reactivated a Soviet-era listening post on the island. Two years later, the Kremlin announced its intention to re-establish additional military facilities in Cuba.

Of course, the Admiral Gorshkov is hardly the first Russian naval vessel to arrive in Cuba in recent years. For example, in 2016, the Neustrashimyy-class frigate Yaroslav Mudry, along with a tanker, visited Havana. The Vishnya-class spy ship Viktor Leonov is a regular visitor to the island, too. But again, sending the first and so far only Project 22350 frigate is clearly meant to be a demonstration of the latest and greatest the Russian Navy has to offer.

It also comes as the U.S. military has been calling attention to increasingly regular Russian naval presence in the Western Hemisphere for years now, though generally with a greater emphasis on submarine activities. In response, the U.S. Navy recently reactivated 2nd Fleet to help better oversee operations along the East Coast of the United States, in the North Atlantic, and the Arctic, while 4th Fleet remains responsible for the Carribean and the South Atlantic.

Of course, the complete composition of the flotilla does also underscore the continued difficulties the Russian Navy actually has in truly projecting power far from the country’s shore. Sending three support ships, including the Nikolay Chiker, doesn’t necessarily inspire confidence in Admiral Gorshkov‘s ability to conduct protracted long-range operations. The tug is one of two the Russian Navy has, which form a class that, for a time, held the world record as the most powerful ships of their type in the world.