NATO's move provoked Russia? Now they'll relocate fleet from the Baltic
Russia will relocate some of its ships from the Baltic to Lake Ladoga, east of the Gulf of Finland. This is a response to NATO's expansion at sea - reports The Moscow Times.
1:37 PM EDT, October 24, 2023
The final decision on this matter has not yet been made. The ones to be evacuated to Ladoga would be small rocket ships of the 22800 Karakurt project and 21631 Buyan-M.
The military has so far analyzed the conditions on the lake, and maneuvers have also taken place on this body of water. Lake Ladoga is approximately 25 miles from the border with Finland.
Ships with Kalibr and Zircon missiles?
As reported by "Izvestia", expert Dmitry Boltienkov believes that relocating ships is a "reasonable military-political response" to Sweden and Finland joining NATO and that Lake Ladoga is not well known to Western intelligence.
Bołtienkow also argues that small missile ships are "effective platforms for deploying various types of weapons," possibly including Zircon hypersonic missiles.
The Karakurt-class units can fire Kalibr cruise missiles, which - according to Russian media - are capable of hitting targets at a distance of 1616 miles. Between 2019-21, Russia commissioned three projects 22800 ships for service in the Baltic Sea.
Additional Bujan-M-type ships were also supposed to reach the Baltic Fleet. According to media information, these ships can be equipped with Oniks missiles with a warhead weighing 661 lbs; this missile can be used to attack ships and ground targets at a distance up to 311 miles.
Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Finland became the 31st member of the Alliance on April 4th of this year. The accession of Sweden has not yet been ratified by two member states of the North Atlantic Alliance: Turkey and Hungary.
