Amid ongoing tensions between Russia and Ukraine, the Russian navy has sortied 5 Ropucha-class landing ships and one Ivan Gren-class landing ship from their Baltic fleet.
AIS data from marinetraffic.com indicates the ships are en route to the English channel. Marineschepen reports that “the supervision was then taken over by Belgian and British naval vessels”.
This article was submitted by John. John is a student at the University of South Carolina studying political science. He has also studied the Arab-Israeli conflict at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. John currently hosts ‘The Osint Bunker‘ podcast, a popular production focusing on global events, you can read more about the podcast on our dedicated page here.
This amphibious assault flotilla is heading towards the English Channel, and will almost certainly head for the Black Sea.
Three Ropucha-class landing ships were spotted transiting the Straits of Denmark on Monday the 17th, and were captured by Michael Christensen (@tekmic64). Additionally, a Sentinel satellite captured the transit.
De tre RUPUCHA klasse gik under broen. Billeder fra FB gruppen "Under Broen" – og tak for dem. pic.twitter.com/rbRxLEpQEl
— Michael Christensen 🇩🇰 🌻 (@tekmic64) January 17, 2022
On Tuesday the 18th, an additional two Ropucha-class landing ships and one Ivan Gren-class landing ship made the transit.
Sentinel imagery from today. 3 Ropucha class landing ships transit the Denmark Straits pic.twitter.com/wGuf2b4MBW
— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) January 17, 2022
According to reporting by marineschepen.nl, the hydrographic survey vessel Zr.Ms. Luymes escorted three Russian landing craft through the North Sea, assumed to be the 3 Ropucha-class ships.
1 IVAN GREN and 2 ROPUCHA passing under Storebæltsbroen (Great Belt Bridge) at 10'ish this morning. Thes nice photos are used with permission from Kurt Petersen, FB group "Under Broen". Danish Patrol vessel P521 following the 3 RU vessels. pic.twitter.com/xZwcGC2S60
— Michael Christensen 🇩🇰 🌻 (@tekmic64) January 18, 2022
The Ropucha-class landing ship can transport 10 main battle tanks and 340 troops or 12 BTRs and 340 troops or 3 main battle tanks, 3 2S9 Nona-S, 5 MT-LBs, 4 army trucks and 313 troops or 500 tons of cargo.
The Ivan Gren-class can transport 40 BTRs or IFVs and 300 troops.
As I said in the other thread, these ships could be planned as a major increase in the carrying capacity of the Syrian Express, the Russia to Syria supply route, in the event of major military action in Syria rather than Ukraine. The Russians are seldom predictable.
EDIT They look well loaded so first stop Tartus?
Ivan is Russian interpretation of the name John . Is that not right Ivan ?
Don’t know, never looked it up and I don’t see why it is relevant to the comment I made.
Ivan I give you credit you do try lol
As do you lol
If anyone has a slightly different viewpoint on the Ukraine situation or Chinese activities in the South China Sea, he/she is invariably labelled as being in the pay of Moscow or Beijing.
Correct.
Yep, hand put up there. All getting a bit silly, but we let the children play.
TBH it is pretty obvious who is who.
Look at the use of the definite article. It doesn’t really exist in Russian. So native Russians don’t really use it and it disappears in some complex sentences in odd places.
Nuff said but very amusing all the same.
Those lading ships are about as up to date at the Round Table Class. So basically a small ferry with a gun on the top.
No actully the tell sign for me was that JohninMK thinks Salisbury poisonings was done by the UK government ,and to be honest every one of his comments has bias towards the kremlin.
The Duck test.
lol yep.
That’s a bit rude I would say. he’s making a perfectly valid conversation point on the strategic movements of Russian Millitary forces. If you don’t agree with his view argue it robustly and polite. Personally don’t think johns thoughts are correct around the main aim of this deployment, I think the driver is geopolitical to put pressure on negotiations and sending a clear message that Russia is strengthened its capability and threat around Ukraine. I also think Russia has decided it needs more resources around The othe main reasons I don’t think johns point can be used is in fact… Read more »
Thanks and you may well be correct, not me. Russia tends to move stuff by train, the forces just now into Belarus came from the Pacific, that was a message. If they wanted to move stuff from north to south that would have gone by rail as well, not via the Bay of Biscay.
Re the legal position, Turkey has not stopped any Russian naval ship from transiting even after the war hotted up in 2015, I doubt they will start now, Russia is too important a partner.
Very true on the Turkish front, we can only really trust Turkey to do what is best for its new religious government, so quite frankly I don’t think anyone knows which way Turkey would jump at any time ( I suspect though the direction would be less favourable to EU and NATO) but Turkey does still need NATO and the EU to be a balance that keeps Russia honest ( Turkey is playing both sides). So Russia does need to play into its game plans that Turkey could be forced by NATO to enact its rights under the 1936 convention,… Read more »
Very good reply. A lot of real politic would come into play.
When I’m thinking through geopolitical stuff I always try and use an investigation method I was taught and use a lot. It’s called the five Whys. What you do is if you have an event or a first answer you ask yourself why and keep on digging down till you get to five iterations or if your not sure you can keep asking why till you hit a set of root causes. It’s mainly used to review critical failures but it’s also a great mental exercise for thinking through likely or potential outcomes and causes in complex systems like geopolitics.… Read more »
Lol. It works in a structured, cloistured environment. It doesn’t work in the real world where the “why’s” can be purposefully established to create confusion, fear, and miscalculation. Your analysis is your own undoing. It is the same in sports where you have to make a quick assessment and go all in or be left behind or on the back foot. Putin wants Ukraine. He has bought Europe off with cheap gas and tried to buy the US off with the arrest of the Russian hacker group, all in an effort to get them to look the other way. It… Read more »
The thing is Bea I’m a professionally trained investigator in the most complex system created by man. I have investigated and providing learning and improvements around more Deadly events than Is good for my mental health to think off and this method works in the real world, it is evidenced to work in the real world and recognised by every complex type of system investigations across the world. What Putin wants is less important than what he needs, why and how he will try to get what he wants and the likely ways of preventative measures could fail or succeed,… Read more »
Another way of looking at the “why” problem was suggested by Kipling well over a hundred years ago. In verse.
I keep six honest serving men, they taught me all I knew.
Their names are What and Why and When, and How and Where and Who.
If you are doing an operational analysis it’s not a bad way of looking at the problem, starting with What has been proposed, Why should we do that, When should it happen. How do we make it happen. Where does it need to happen and Who is going to do it.
Yes that’s a very good little way to structure your thinking process, plenty of ways to do it thing is to always use a process to help you think around complexity otherwise you end being done to and reacting without thought and that’s when the bad shit can happen.
And ensure you keep your head when all around are losing theirs .Seems poety for what “is or isn’t ” happening on the borders of Ukraine and Russia
Thank you, I have printed it out and will use it.
So its a system of finding an excuse for the excuse ?
Don’t Be silly it’s the way to find the reasons things happened so you can try and stop it happening again or you can just carry on in ignorance or shout at or sack a clinician, because that’s always stopped shit happening. every system is designed to create the outcomes it does and if that’s fucked up outcomes then your system is fucked up and you need to find out what’s wrong not blame some poor sod who was trying to do their best in a situation most the British public would refuse to work in or not have the… Read more »
Bleeding heart?
No room in this world for a bleeding heart, hard logic only.
There we differ. In the 1980’s when Quality Improvement was fashionable the company I worked for sent me on a course to become a ‘trained trainer’ for the W.Edwards Deming system. I remember the lectures where he told us to keep asking why, why to get to root cause of problems. He was a statistician by training and wrote standard text books on statistical process control. US industry was not interested in his methods. After WWII he was sent by the US government to help rebuild Japanese industry and there he was spectacularly successful – think Austin Allegro then think… Read more »
Hi paul totally correct, it is a tool that only works on a background of a culture that accepts failures in systems. Deming is some great seminal work, but he very much was an engineer and only really look at the system and and not the culture. So as you say you can find the failures in your system but if your organisation does not have that “ok we are making a mistake what do we do about it” culture it’s all for nothing. With the NHS you have to remember it’s not one organisation but is instead a couple… Read more »
Thanks Jonathan but I’m well past that now. Retired a long time ago. Got to half way between orange and black belt at the time. Good luck preaching the gospel. As my grandmother used to say, you can take a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.
Its history for me now ‘ il faut cultiver notre jardin’ 😉
I love the Voltaire quote and your grandmother was a wise woman, but I keep on fighting the good fight ( seen to many people hurt by stupid systems to give up) Always a Pleasure to debate with someone who understands that our minds needs to be pushed to grow.
Except for a minority of Catholics of Polish descent in thr west of the country Ukraine is overwhelmingly Orthodox Christian. Putin is in thrall to the Russian Orthodox church ( the Moscow patriarch). Without their support he cannot stay in power. They are the Russian people and are probably very upset that their parishes in Ukraine are ‘deserting’ to join the recently inaugurated Ukrainian orthodox national patriarch with the other two Orthodox patriarchs in Ukraine. Crimea’s population is majority Russian Orthodox with minority Muslims. Donbas is roughly 50% Russian Orthodox 50% atheists. These regions are culturally similar to Russia. This… Read more »
Agree with your figures apart from congregations in the Ukrainian church seem to be a lot lower that in the Russian one. Also it is the seperatists who have been desperate to come to the table and talk since the 2015 Minsk Protocol was signed, it is the Kiev Government who has steadfastly (under right wing pressure) refused to do so The current President even promised to do so before the election but has not done so since. The West needs to force Kiev to the table then it can all unwind.
I was using census / survey figures from wiki. The Russian believers probably attend church more often I guess.
Getting the Donbas separatists around the same table as the Kieve government is a bit like asking the UDA to disarm and discuss with the Dublin government about NI becoming a self governing province of the Republic. Good luck.
More like the impossible rask of getting the IRA around the same table as the UK Government. Oh wait!
There we differ. The UK was and is the expeditionary occupying presence. Irish is the indigenous (and Catholic ) culture. The founding raison d’être of the Orange movement which has Masonic roots, was the eradication of catholicism. The UK is constitutionally a protestant state.Go It’s a bit thick for the UK to criticise Putin for being a backward looking imperialist.
I was ignoring the religious element , looking at it just from the position of ‘separatists’ (IRA and DNR/LDR) and Gov (London and Kiev).
Per my original post with the link to the Aston University article ( they have gone up in my estimation) the ecumenical conclave of the separate Orthodox Ukraine patriarchs in Istanbul ( Constantinople was the site of the great schism in 1054 between the catholic and orthodox churches) was the pivotal event which in reality brought the Ukrainian state into existence. It was the state ‘Christening’ and as the article says had huge political consequences. People tend to ignore the religious element of events. In fact its crucial. The historian Michael Woods said in his BBC series on English history… Read more »
Thank you. That was worth your efforts.
Good debate. Signing off now for the evening. Ciao.
John are you interested in military matters in general or just those appertaining to Russia? As all your posts are on the Russia/Ukraine issue, and general in defence of the former? Intrigued that’s all.
Yes, most military matters, I do comment on other than Russian issues here but it is them that tend to kick up a storm so are more noticed. My interest in military related started back in the early 80s when the office subscribed to International Defence Review, back then a big glossy magazine but now part of Janes’ output. It went doggo for a while as life took over but came back in 2014 Kiev. Since then it has been Russian oriented as they seemed to be moving forward in many ways that were either ignored or downplayed in the… Read more »
Can’t disagree with anything you have said there. Donbas and Crimea is a dogs dinner of transplanted ethic groups over centuries. It’s one one those little tinder box areas that are created by retreating multicultural empires, Northern Ireland is our own little example. it’s going to need a lot of careful sorting out if it not going to end up a trigger point for a general war of nuclear powers. Thats the bit that’s actually really going to be hard geopolitically and what the US, Russia Need to talk about. Whats getting my goat is the wider Geopolitics. The stupid… Read more »
I think NATO since it primarily a military entity is clouding the issues. We need Russia to embrace the West; become a European country. Perestroika was an opportunity missed. The EU should be party to negotiations. Instead of threats of sanctions we should be aiming for tripartite trade agreements between Ukraine, the EU and Russia.These should be backed by project to build a high speed rail from Moscow to Frankfurt. Our objective politically should be to separate Moscow from Bejing.
Yes you are spot on, we missed a big opportunity at the end of the Cold War. We need to get to that point where Russia does not see Europe as the enemy and we don’t see them as the enemy. We should have always been including Russia in decision making on European security as a partner. As you say China is our ( western liberal democracies) great geopolitical opponent and it wants and needs (without much doubt) world wide hegemony so it can secure its raw materials across the second and third world and markets in the first world.… Read more »
Russia wanted to join both NATO and the EU but was rejected by both. Putin was quoted as saying something along the lines of ‘an economic block from the Atlantic to Pacific coasts. But that didn’t sit well with the US which recognized the very real potential threat to its hegemony, as per Mackinder’s heartland theory.
I’m not sure that NATO is able to eject a member nation. After all, it would undermine Article 5 as they could simply eject a nation that was about to be, or had been, attacked to avoid involvement.
Hi Sean there is no specific tool for removal of a country from nato, but it has a specific charter around culture and values that Turkey had basically turned its back on. There have been a number of times it’s been considered how Turkey could be removed and my reading of a lot of the reports are basically it’s on its last warning and there has been thought around the how Turkey could be removed. As Turkey is not being invaded, but is ignoring many of the aspects of its requirements to be a nato member I think at some… Read more »
So Turkey has annoyed the NATO members by buying Russian equipment such as the S400. Plus Erdogan is on the brink of becoming a despotic ruler with his behaviour – I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to replace democracy with theocratic government like Iran. But which requirements of its NATO membership is it not currently fulfilling? Now historically Turkey was allowed to join NATO to keep it out of Russia’s sphere of influence. Yes the current administration is proving adept at playing off NATO against Russia and vice versa. But given that Erdogan is crashing the currency by running… Read more »
Hi Sean Nato has since its inception really focused a lot of work on what a member state should look like in a holistic way, best summary of a lot of different NATO publications I have found is: “nations are expected to respect the values of the North Atlantic Treaty, and to meet certain political, economic and military criteria, set out in the Alliance’s 1995 Study on Enlargement. These criteria include a functioning democratic political system based on a market economy; fair treatment of minority populations; a commitment to resolve conflicts peacefully; an ability and willingness to make a military… Read more »
Interesting Youtube: CISAC Stanford.
Movement of troops by train BUT equipment pre-positioned.
Looking at what those ships could carry – must be a nightmare for a commander acting in defense.
As with other ships, very vulnerable, especially on the foreshore, particularily to long range missiles. Or movement by plane to their equipment like NATO.
These ships won’t be operating on their own when heading for a beach head. Even Russia aren’t that incompetent!? They will follow the same methodology as NATO. The amphibs will be escorted by ships with both ASW and air defence, plus there will be air cover. They will try to form a protective bubble around the beach head and to try and prevent any counter to their moves. There are plenty of publicly available videos that demonstrate how Russia’s Navy and Marines do beach assaults, that includes these ships. Something I’m sure Ukraine is well aware of? But why are… Read more »
Agree with all you say.
👍
Sean is [the] Irish interpretation of the name John. Is that not right Ivan?
🤭
How would I know or care? But thanks, I do now.
Sorry John but I was replying to Sean.
Enough with this codswallop. John in Milton Keynes is def not Ivan and so what if he is it is good to have the opposite view. Ulya when he comments always gives an opposite balanced and welcome view.
As the captain of HMS Montrose said to his troops on C5 documentary do not underestimate the Russians they are as well skilled and if not better than us and good adversaries.
Thank you, Ulya is a ‘she’ btw 👍
I think you meant to reply to Sean, who is the person who referred to John as Ivan, and who was the person I was replying to.
Always interesting to hear other peoples comments on defence matters, I get to learn something other than my own opinion.
As you quite rightly say, Ulya comments are well balanced and informative and worth reading, unlike some!
Agreed however you also need to do a correct tactical appraisal of your enemy, and John may not be Russkie lol but his continued Russian excusing posts, his often patronising and glib views on UK military capability and NATO in general, and his easily interpreted views which are posted, can be spotted and assessed even by students at the end of week one at chicksands. All you have to do is take some time, read and log. As for Ulya, some very good reasonable posts, and interesting.
Doubt they would be sending supplies to Syria, wars wound down for a couple of years now, no-one left to fight and the problems remaining are mostly economic (4 million refugees, collapse of the Syrian economy and Assad trying his hand at being a drug lord). They could be evacuating their troops but they have landing ships in the Black Sea that could have done the job in multiple trips in the same time it takes these to even reach the theatre from the Northern Fleet.
The war there may be doggo at the moment but Idlib has to be sorted and that will take a lot of ‘stuff’. There are still many thousands of terrorists there waiting for their virgins. The Russians tend to move manpower by air, as they have just shown in Kazakhstan, and the bulk heavy less urgent stuff by sea or rain. As I say below my money would be on a big shipment into Syria then off to Crimea.
It is sending a message either way regardless if it Syria or Ukraine’s southern flank. It will tie up Ukrainian troops none the less on the Black Sea just in case.
Kazakhstan was VDV operation so everything was air transport, Syria ground force mostly army or VDV using army equipment. Equipment being shipped from Baltic to Syria very common, usually depends on where it is coming from internally and if trains have other priorities or ship availability in black sea
After a couple of days layover in Syria to refuel the Landing ships are now in transit through the Bosporus Strait without unloading any of their embarked troops or equipment, two naval infantry battalions.
Any link for the troops embarked please?
Most likely Syria resupply or withdrawal.
At least someone else here can see the bigger picture. There is too much at stake for Putin to hit Ukraine unless they strike first at Donbas. So, looking at alternative places for Russia to rattle the US (NATO is basically irrelevant as a decision body in their eyes) Syria sticks out as an opportunity to put egg on their face by forcing a withdrawal. They could do this by getting Syria to declare a no fly zone in the east enforced by the SyAF and RuAF plus closing the border crossings. This puts the US in a siege. For… Read more »
I have seen reports the RuAF have redeployed 12 aircraft from Syria to an airbase on the Ukraine border so I doubt your scenario.
I have not seen that, do you have a link?
So they weren’t sunk off Margate then…..🙄
They havent got there yet! The Admiralty should resurrect the Dover Patrol.
You can track them almost in real time here –
https://www.bognorregisbeach.co.uk/live-shipping-map-english-channel
You can check this for the weather in case the Russians decide to shelter from bad weather in in The Sound off HMNB Devenport for 3 days again
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/specialist-forecasts/coast-and-sea/shipping-forecast
My m8 Spud has a commercial comms receiver and monitors VHF marine channel 6. He reports normal chatter tonight
Thanks David, very useful links.
Interesting links, thanks David.
🤣
beat to quarters, clear the guns for action, full speed ahead and dam the torpedoes, or a mixture of the above 😂🤣☄️💥🔥😆.
Or maybe we should just send the carriers to provide an escort through the Channel, after all what use is a rivers if we needed to sink these.
Probably be more sensible to use land based aircraft than carriers that would lose any advantage in a congested sea lane between Britain and France… well if D Day was any guide anyway.
Honestly……🙄
I’ve just had my appendix out and I’m both off my face on anaesthetic and pain killing drugs and bored sitting in a ward, so my responses are going to reflect that 😂
Sure, but I think you misread my post mate. The “Honestly” was not reacting to your jokey post, but some of the other nonsense I’m reading from some here.
And I have just read some quite magnificent contributions from yourself, and John, chewing over Ukraine on the other thread. I can see you have time on your hands!
Though they were some of your in depth geopolitical ones last night, so they must have been pre op?
No that was 5 hours post op, clearly an anaesthetic is good for the brain 🤪
😳🤣
Yes being a patient is so boring, but at the same time it reminds you how lucky we are having a healthcare system that puts you back together. I know what you mean about the posts, there is a lot of firebrands who have a bring it on view without really considering the consequences. At a minimum Ukraine would be a devastated shell, without power water etc creating a massive humanitarian crisis and civilian loss of life, not forgetting the soldiers on both sides who are just young men doing what they see as their patriotic duty, at worst it… Read more »
I have seen the arguement that this deployment is possibly a Syria run. I somehow think this is unlikely, the main reason that I have is that three off the amphibious ships are from the Northern Fleet and three from the Baltic Fleet. This does seem to be a major Amphibious deployment without decreasing the resources in the Black sea. If you wanted to do a Syria run then Amphibious units from the Black Sea would be more logical. The run from the Baltic to the Crimea is 4702 nmi at 12knts will take 16 days. Give say another 3… Read more »
I think you are right. I suspect cutting Ukraine off as much as possible from the Black Sea solves much of their NATO navy problem there, frightens Ukraine into more of a reluctant puppet, may put big pressure on the Govt and further links with the west, while not biting off more than it can chew long term and gets Putin out of the dead end he is presently parked in with his purile threats to all. All while not drawing down all the threats from the west or indeed unification and coordination of their response which a full invasion… Read more »
Don’t want to underestimate Ukraine’s resolve to defend their homeland and with support from the West. If Russia tries it on in they might get quite a surprise and who knows might even lose some territory of their own. The Kerch bridge is quite a nice target too…
Ssssh !
Yes without the Kerch Bridge the Russians would probably need lots of ships to ferry reinforcements to any invasion…
I think you’re bang on with your assessment. The forces to the North in Belorussia mean that Kyiv appears vulnerable, tying down Ukrainian forces to defend. Seizing the whole of Ukraine is a step too far, even for Putin to get away with. But he’s learned from Crimea that he can occupy small parts of the Ukraine without foreign military intervention. Securing the water supply for Crimea, taking total control of the Sea of Azov, is probably what he’ll settle for. But he’d probably pass on these if he could humiliate NATO by getting it to agree to his recent… Read more »
If things did kick off, I don’t think Russia would take the whole country in one step, more likely a prolonged series of steps up to the Dnieper River. The obvious plan would be to isolate Kiev. But I think their immediate goal would be to consolidate the whole of the south coast. This would link up the disputed Donbass territories as well as the enclave in the west near Moldova. It would then mean Crimea has access to fresh water again. Thereby leaving Ukraine with no access to the Black Sea. There is also the way the seasons affect… Read more »
All roads lead to Constantinople….
Many a true word, Russia has been trying to get control of the Bosporus Straits for centuries.
And the rest….1054…1453….
All part of the Russian pressure on Ukraine. Ships would be very handy for amphibious landings on the Black Sea coast of the country.
So, looking at a map, if these landing craft reach the Sea of Azov and effect an amphibious landing on the Ukraine coast and Russian forces with the aid of existing rebels, advance towards Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzya, Kehrson that might give Putin what he wants; ownership of the Sea of Azov, unimpeded access to the Black Sea and a buffer province much of whose population would be ethnic Russian. A good portion of the new frontier with Ukraine would be well defined Dnipero waterways or main roads.
Or Odessa.
Yeh. I suspect that would be much harder.
Google Trans nistria
Very interesting. Not sure such a large ‘Trans’ state would be a viable political solution for long. No love lost between Ukraine and Russia.
The Russians seem to have a strategy of giving the Ukranians as many potential linesof attack to try to defend against. See Belarus. That way they can’t concentrate against any one threat. Plus it’s just the old gameplan of grabbing as much territory as possible to try to destabilise their opponents. See Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Not saying they will or won’t but that’s the problem.
Yes, I didn’t realise for example that there are Russian ‘peace keeping’ forces in Trans Nistria. See link below.
Good news that Ukraine has S-300 missiles. Russian air superiority is not a given I think.
https://sputniknews.com/20150613/1023333078.html
Yeah it barely gets a mention anywhere. I only heard about watching a travelogue type show about weird ‘states’. Thanks for link did not know that.
The S-300 are quite old and the Russians will be up to speed on jamming them.
The Russian Navy almost certainly has enough landing craft already in the Black Sea for an Azov assault, if they didn’t decide just to drive across the border or use some paras. Would be useful for a simultaneous attack around Odessa though.
Are the ships accompanied by a flotilla of tugs in case they break down?
That ship type has proved to be extremely reliable under heavy use on the Syrian Express.
Russia has stated that its Armed forces will be conducting a few exercises with Allies around the world, hopefully when this Amphibious flotilla passes through the Channel straits they could pick up some illegals and take them back round to the Med
If they are headed for the Black Sea, should they not have been observed transiting the English Channel by now?
Priti’s probably onboard now, I mean, when she said she was calling in tbe Navy… who knew which one?
I wonder if she’ll get a call round ,and Sail of into the Sunset
I’d live in hope that she follows Bluffer into Davey Jones’ locker and the Con collective give their heads a huge wobble; whichever party is in power, I hope we agree that any Opposition needs to be focused and united for the greater good of the country by holding whichever Govt to account… even Daniele might agree with a Labour supporter on that one 🙂
I suspect that if the Russian Navy , or probably the Polish as well, there would be a lot fewer migrants getting across. We could use Apache downwash to blow them back.
Of course we could always rejoin the EU where we could legally just send them back.
Has Bluffer got Brexit done yet? All tickety boo and squared away? Total shoite show AND he cut our armed forces! He needs a Mussolini job doing on him.
If we blockade the Channel I I’s will be able too walk across instead of inflatables LOL
The Russia Naval Infantry ore some of their best troops. Not that they will be making the long journey by sea. However, increasing the amphibious capability of the BSF, brings a new level of threat to Ukraine and other nations around the Black Sea/Mediterranean.
On its way to the Black Sea by any chance?