Watching Russian Air & Sea Activity

[AdamG]

U.S. national security officials are concerned about the pace and intensity of Russian submarine development, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jon Greenert said Thursday.

"There are competitors that are pursuing us. We know about China. That is very well spelled out, but not as many people know what the Russians are up to. I can't go into detail, obviously, but they spend a lot of money. The Russians have been working on a sea-based strategic deterrence - and an SSN (attack submarine)," Greenert said at the Naval Submarine League's annual symposium in Falls Church, Va.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/10/23...e-development/

[davidbfpo]

I suppose it was only a matter of time for a report like this to appear, as NATO/EU and USA ponder whether there is a return to the 'Cold War' in the apparent increase in Russian air and sea exercises:http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...west-cold-war?

So this group of the once "great and good", the European Leadership Network, says:

Close military encounters between Russia and the west have jumped to cold war levels, with 40 dangerous or sensitive incidents recorded in the past eight months alone, according to a report published on Monday.

The report, Dangerous Brinkmanship by the European Leadership Network, logs a series of “highly disturbing” incidents since the Ukrainian crisis began earlier this year, including an alarming near-collision between a Russian reconnaissance plane and a passenger plane taking off from Denmark in March with 132 passengers on board.

The report (not read yet):http://www.europeanleadershipnetwork...2014_2101.html


In The Guardian comments was a reference to this incident, in April 2014 in the Black Sea:

Russian Sukhoi Su -24 with the newest jamming complex paralyzed in the Black Sea the most modern American combat management system "Aegis" installed on the destroyer "USS Donald Cook". Pavel Zolotarev, Deputy Director, Institute of USA and Canada, shares details about this version which is being actively discussed in the Russian media and by bloggers.

The article has a Russian author and in places appears to be propaganda:http://indian.ruvr.ru/2014_04_21/Rus...ald-Cook-5786/

Moderators Note

I have changed the thread title from 'Russian Fleet Movements' to 'Watching Russian Air & Sea Activity' to reflect the posts here referring to both air and naval activity. Note one theme is the apparent testing of NATO alertness (ends).

[davidbfpo]

The Australian defence ministry is tracking a fleet of Russia warships sailing in international waters near its coast.

It is believed the vessels, currently in the Coral Sea near Papua New Guinea, could be heading to Brisbane for next week’s G20 summit, which Vladimir Putin will attend.


Russia’s Pacific flagship, the Varyag, is leading the contingent south, accompanied by destroyer Marshal Shaposhnikov and one of the world’s most powerful tugs, the Fotiy Krylov. A supply tanker called Boris Butoma is accompanying them towards Australia’s east coast.

Link to UK coverage:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...t-9855308.html


To Australian coverage:http://www.news.com.au/national/russ...-1227120928528


Having a Russian naval flotilla at a G20 summit is hardly new. One assumes the voyage southwards was noted days before the press reporting.

[davidbfpo]

From the BBC today:

Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said there was a plan to provide long-range aviation maintenance for the flights....On Wednesday, Mr Shoigu said "long-range aviation units" would fly along the borders of the Russian Federation and over the waters of the Arctic Ocean. He added: "Under the prevailing circumstances we need to ensure a military presence in the western Atlantic and eastern Pacific oceans, the waters of the Caribbean basin and the Gulf of Mexico.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30028371

Back to an old 'Cold War' deployment pattern then.

[Bill Moore]

We'll have to remind the Russians of our Monroe Doctrine when they start patrolling the Gulf of Mexico

Saw the same information in "The Hill" today.

http://thehill.com/policy/internatio...gulf-of-mexico

Russian bombers to patrol Gulf of Mexico

Purpose of the patrols?

On to Russian military modernization

http://www.cfr.org/russian-federatio...ilitary-111014

As part of defense reforms, most Russian ground forces are to be professionalized and reorganized into formations of a few thousand troops for low- and medium-intensity conflicts. But for the foreseeable future many will remain one-year conscripts with limited training (military service is compulsory for Russian men aged eighteen to twenty-seven). The Airborne Assault Forces, which comprises about thirty-five thousand troops and whose commander answers directly to Putin, is Russia's elite crisis-reaction force. A Special Operations Command, also a reserve of Putin, was created in 2013 to manage special operators outside Russian borders.

Moscow is intent on remilitarizing its Arctic territory and is restoring Soviet-era airfields and ports to help protect important hydrocarbon resources and shipping lanes. (Russia has the world's largest fleet of icebreakers, which are regularly required to navigate these waters.) In late 2013, Putin ordered the creation of a new strategic military command in the Russian Arctic.

What do they see as threats?

One listed (there are others in the study)

Moscow believes the so-called color revolutions—a series of popular uprisings in former Soviet satellites—were concerted attempts by the United States and its allies to erode Russian influence in the region. "Russian foreign policy appears to be based on a combination of fears of popular protest and opposition to U.S. world hegemony, both of which are seen as threatening the Putin regime," writes Dmitry Gorenburg, an expert on the Russian military at CNA, a Virginia-based research institution.

Outside of the Artic, little in the above to explain Russia's aggressive aerial and proposed Naval patrolling in the vicinity of the U.S.. One can discern it is a show of power, not unlike we used to do to each other not too many decades ago.

As for the Color Revolutions

http://www.ponarseurasia.org/sites/d...g_Sept2014.pdf

Countering Color Revolutions

The speakers, which included top Russian military and diplomatic officials such as Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, argued that color revolutions are a new form of warfare invented by Western governments seeking to remove independently-minded national governments in favor of ones controlled by the West. They argued that this was part of a global strategy to force foreign values on a range of nations around the world that refuse to accept U.S. hegemony and that Russia was a particular target of this strategy.

They may right that is a new form of old warfare. We do have a couple of noted authorities on how to promote and run non-violent revolutions who have even published books on it. Whether the U.S. supports this or not remains a question, but if our State Department does promote this type of activity, one would hope have Congressional oversight, so we prevent some idealist Georgetown graduate go rogue and promote instability in a country that may be contrary to our interests.

[OUTLAW 09]

Another day another set of TUs off and flying. Think Putin is trying badly to out do the old Soviet Union days and yet he says "Cold War" is possible---currently we are in a Cold War 2.0 but do not want to admit it.


Latitude 67N SIGINT @uascan

RUAF strategic air forces (TU95) sw net up with voice traffic

One has to love the old Soviet AF--still using sw.

Must be a really great flying day for the Russian AF.


Very high activity on RUAF Priboj transport flight sw net

Okey. Busy day on the airwaves.

RUAF VHF comms consistent with SU27 fighters in Baltic Sea

[AdamG]

OUTLAW 09, how about a translation of that in basic English?

I *think* I know what I just read.