21.06.2012
Text:
Photo: Landing ship
Nikolai Filchenkov.
"Russian Armed Forces including the Navy and other services began preparations for possible employment in Syria. Most likely, that would be evacuation of Russian citizens and military personnel working in Russian Navy's technical maintenance base in Syrian port Tartus", reported
Vedomosti citing its sources in security agencies.
However, so far it has not been told to dispatch Russian ships in the nearest days. Therefore, defense ministry's denial of plans to send certain ships of Black Sea and even Baltic fleets to Syria in a short time is absolutely correct, pointed out one of the interviewees. According to
Vedomosti, in Tuesday evening, defense ministry confuted reports that Baltic Fleet landing ship
Kaliningrad would be dispatched to Syria.
A Black Sea Fleet officer told
Vedomosti on Wednesday that no orders to send landing ships
Caesar Kunikov and
Nikolai Filchenkov to Syria had been received so far. Moreover, the officer said that
Nikolai Filchenkov moored at Sevastopol at the time was about to head for Novorossiysk for training purposes and return back on June 25.
According to CNN referring to the Pentagon insiders, those two ships were preparing to depart for Syria.
Meanwhile, interviewees of
Vedomosti say that apart from defense ministry other agencies like EMERCOM were also tasked to develop evacuation plans in order to withdraw Russian citizens.
However, neither defense ministry nor EMERCOM gave official comments.
As for Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, about 100,000 Russian citizens currently reside in Syria.
