Peter the Great Update: It's About Time!

Gist: The deployed Northern Fleet battle group has met Venezuelan Armed Forces. Having just barely entered territorial waters, they picked up an honor guard of Venezuelan Su-30s, the very kind that Russia has sold to Latin America. The Peter the Great and other ships will rest at anchor at the port of La Guaira, 35km from Caracas, while ashore they prepare to welcome Russian sailors, who in turn will return the favor.

Venezuela welcomes us! The task force enters territorial waters in the Caribbean Sea. This very morning two Su-30s are in the sky, made in Russia, sold to Venezuela. They circle the task group one after the other. Our sailors render honors to a friendly country and this frigate will escort us to the port of La Guaira. The exercises between the countries will last until the first of December. These will be the first exercises in history involving the submarines, frigates, cruisers and helicopters of Russia and Venezuela.

Comrade officers, I will now brief you on the exercises between Russia and Venezuela, ((missed))-2008.

They discuss the plans that lay ahead in the Navigator's shack - joint patrolling, search for and destruction of submarines and ships belonging to the potential enemy, reconnaissance and anti-air warfare. The militaries of the two countries have been preparing for these large scale exercises for a couple of months. The official language of the exercises wont be English, Spanish or Russian but the language of symbols and signs.

We have created a table of conditional signals which have been translated into both languages and both countries have approved this table of signals. These signals will be used during the exercise....

There is activity above decks as well. Two presidents will visit Peter the Great: Hugo Chavez and Dmitriy Medvedev.

This is the first time Peter the Great has visited South America. The cruiser was built for northern waters and not for the Caribbean. The air temperature is 34 degrees and the water temperature is 30.

Captain, Peter the Great, Feliks Min'kov: The ship has been at sea in the open ocean. Whether we want it or not, we have to battle against the effects of salt water, or just plain water. So we have to clean up everywhere.

The flag of Venezuela already flies on the mast. It is naval tradition to fly the flag of the countries in whose port you are conducting a friendly visit. Today the sailors checked out the missile tubes. The Peter the Great's armament will be shown to the presidents of both countries.

What is there to show? The Peter the Great is the largest non-aircraft carrier warship in the world. Two hundred and fifty meters of steel with dozens of missile tubes. And beneath each of these three ton hatches lays the main battery - the Granit nuclear anti-ship cruise missile (RNB comment - Huh! Well how about that!). As opposed to American cruise missiles, the Granit flies to its target at supersonic speed like a fighter jet. There is no ship as powerful as the Peter the Great in the world.

Peter the Great Deployment Update

26 Sep:



Gist: NATO forces shadow Peter the Great and the Chabanenko from the sea and the air in the Norwegian Sea while the Russians conduct flight operations. Norwegian P-3 Orions circle the ships, obviously making observations as NATO will probably do every step of the way to Venezuela. The film crew observes as the P-3 drops sonobuoys in the water, listening for Russian submarines in the area and collecting data for analysis. The captain of the Peter the Great knew that the Norwegians were coming long before they got within visual range because of all the radar equipment mounted on the superstructure the size of a 17 story building. The navigator has more pressing concerns: avoiding bad weather on the way to Venezuela.

There are also a lot of contract sailors on board.

Toward the evening the sea state is five, which means waves up to seven meters. Flight ops were planned. Peter the Great is carrying two, one SAR bird and a second ASW helo. The fire fighters get on deck to erect the crash net so that the helo doesn't fall overboard. Flight ops are cancelled because of the winds and rain and put off until tomorrow.

26 Sep:


Gist: Peter the Great conducts exercises under the watchful eye of NATO. Crew training is conducted every day on board the Peter the Great and the Admiral Chabanenko. Since the 63,000 horsepower engines of the Chabenenko aren't nuclear powered, she requires a lot of fuel. A Baltic Fleet tanker provides 70 tons of fuel per hour through a flexible hose while underway to the Chabenenko. The Yel'na also provides the Chabenenko with fresh water. The procedure takes seven hours while underway. Its just like in the air, differing in speed and scale. Navigators are careful so as not to cause a collision and spill even a drop of fuel into the water.

Sailors attend training below deck to learn Navy tradition and their rights. If sailors have any questions about their responsibilities or rights they can ask representitives of the military procurator's office or the Federal Security Service (FSB). Usually no one has any questions.

After training, some go off to an unexpected field day while others gather on deck - the Marines. They gather for training on repelling boarders while traversing a narrow strait.



29 Sep: Flight ops. Eavesdropping on a pre-flight briefing. Good flying weather is noted - sea state 2-3, wind 7 meters/sec (appx 14 kts). The crew chief says that the crew members wear special survival suits that will keep them warm and buoyent in the event of an accident. They put on two suits - the first is warm and hooks up to tubes on the helo to provide warmth. The second is orange and waterproof. A crew member demonstrates the inflatable "waterwings" he wears on his hips. The emergency heating system will keep a crew member warm in the water for up to an hour.

Everything is ready, permission is given for flight and a special elevator brings the helo up to the deck. There are two Ka-27s on board the Peter the Great, a SAR helo and an ASW helo. The reporter goes over the characteristics of the Ka-27 and names other country that flies this "most reliable helo of its class". Tonights task is to demonstrate mastery of night flying by flying over to and landing on the Chabanenko and returning. They do this a dozen times tonight while being watched by NATO ships and planes.

Pete and Chab's Excellent Adventure: Underway!

The force that the reporter describes as "a concrete deterrent force that any power that tries to interfere in the internal or external affairs of Russia must deal with" gets underway:



Navy Spokesman Captain 1st Rank Igor' Dygalo describes the deployment as a fulfillment of the vision as conceived by Navy CinC Admiral Vladimir Vysotskiy of the Navy returning to forward deployments and as having nothing to do with events in Georgia since both the deployment and the exercises with Venezuela had been planned months in advance.

Besides Venezuela, the task force will visit Tartus, Syria, which makes sense given this a few weeks ago. I assume that one of the other countries with whom the Russians will hold joint exercises will be Syria.

The reporter also noted that immediately upon getting underway in the Barents, NATO in the form of a P-3 Orion took notice, snapping pictures, making video and carrying out electronic reconnaissance. The reporter expects NATO to surveil the battle group every step of the way during the deployment.

Petr Veliki and Chabanenko Get Underway

On the heels of the Blackjack deployment to Venezuela, a Zvezda TV film crew will be embarked aboard Petr Veliki as her and the Admiral Chabanenko get underway for a three month deployment, in which they will stop in five countries. They will conduct exercises with some of those countries.



Russian naval blogger MuRena sees his friends off with a request for an autograph from Hugo.

Quick Update - Zvezda News Edition

Fire on the Marshal Shaposhnikov in the Sea of Japan:


According to this report there was a leak which caused fuel to leak under high pressure onto a gas turbine engine and ignited, causing a fire. The BPK was then towed back into Vladivostok. Two contract seamen were killed. Charges are being brought, but against whom is not specified. Blogger KVDM notes that a similar fire hit the Shaposhnikov's sister ship the Admiral Zakharov back in 1991 and that that was the last time the Zakharov went to sea.

For the record, if the Russians are going to have a serious engineering casualty anytime in the next couple of months, I'm glad it was now off Japan and not in a few months off of Venezuela.


Marine landing exercises in the Baltic Fleet:


The report notes that Baltic Fleet Marines conducted a practice landing with counter-reconnaissance as their objective. The equivalent of a battalion landing team supported by an airborne company, engineers, 30 ships and 15 aircraft and helos hit the beach at the Khmelova training range in Kalinigrad, debarking from three large landing ships and air cushion vehicles in 40 armored vehicles with support from offshore destroyers. The role of the sniper in an anti-sniper roll was highlighted.

The Blackjacks are on their way home from Venezuela:



And their families missed them. All together now - Aw....flowers!

Blackjack in the Caribbean: The Russians Continue to Hit

Allegedly footage taken during the first training flight flown by Tu-160s out of Venezuela over the Caribbean. The flight lasted about six hours and wasn't approached by foreign interceptors. Hugo Chavez, who had expressed his desire to fly in one, was not on board.

Comment: I wonder how long this strategic bomber deployment will last. Until the November exercises and beyond? That's two months away. Are there multiple crews? Will they fly every day? Will they switch out bombers and crews between now and November? Will the deployment last beyond November? Anybody have any firm answers to any of these questions?

NVO: An Analysis of the Caribbean Exercises, Part II

The Rebirth of the Fourth Fleet

The construction of bases like this can’t be a cause for enthusiasm, especially since the American 4th Fleet has been stood up in the Caribbean area since the 1st of July, disbanded 58 years ago due to disuse. Now it is again one of the numbered fleets on duty for the United States.

Originally the 4th Fleet was formed in 1943 during the fires of World War II to defend American and British shipping lanes from German submarines. German submarines sank 25 Allied tankers during this period in this region. The Hitlerite forces also launched attacks on the Lago oil refinery on the island of Aruba, not far from Venezuela. This was the largest facility of its type in the world and an important strategic facility for the United States.

What is the mission of the new-old fleet? First of all, patrol of the oceans around the carbon rich “revolutionary shores”, from the Caribbean Sea to Cape Horn in the south. Its main port will be Mayport, Florida, and the fleet will subordinate to the United States Southern Command. Rear Admiral James Stevenson, commander of Naval Forces, Southern Command, declared that “the Navy and the DoD have recognized the importance of the region to the south of the United States, which includes the Caribbean Sea, the western Atlantic and the eastern Pacific and all of our partners there.”

The Admiral explained that the main mission for the fleet will be security of sea lanes in its zone of responsibility. Meanwhile, Stevenson hasn’t ruled out the specter of an evolving mission for the fleet. In part, it is designed to take part in delivering humanitarian aid in the event of natural disasters and development of cooperation with countries of the region in the security sphere.

DoD officials believe that the 4th Fleet will play a role in rescue operations, counter-drug operations and also foster cooperation with all interested governments in Central and South America. Nothing else except “aid, which the United States will offer its partners in the region”. The Chief of Naval Operations Gary Roughead added that he considers the formation of the 4th Fleet as a response to the “growth of the significance of maritime security in the southern part of the Western Hemisphere”. According to Roughead, this decision “represents an important signal to all the people and militaries of Central and Latin America”. And to make sure that this signal was heard, by 2009 the strength of the 4th Fleet should be as high as the 5th, 6th or 7th Fleets which operate in the Indian, Atlantic, Mediterranean and Pacific areas respectively.

It follows that ships of the Russian Pacific Fleet simply wont be able to compete with the old-new 4th Fleet; most of all because of distances to their own bases. And the American fleet is right in its own back yard. They don’t have to send ammunition and fuel to the other end of the Earth. Support from their military-industrial complex in the form of shipbuilding and ship repair is on hand, its fighters and bombers are based at nearby air bases and the Pentagon has enough old allies in that part of the world. To drag the Russian military to that area isn’t easy. And there is scarcely anybody for whom such a confrontation would be desirable. Saber rattling and showing the flag off foreign shores – that’s another thing. And it is relatively cheaper.

NVO: An Analysis of the Caribbean Exercises, Part I

The Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie offers a rather sober analysis of the upcoming exercises with Venezuela and the geopolitical factors entitled "Caribbean Crisis Syndrome". Part I of the translation of this aricle follows:



A new political standoff between the United States and Russia is forming in Latin America. Signs of this include sale of SU-30MK2 multi-role fighters to the President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez and the construction of a factory to manufacture Kalashnikovs. Moscow is ready to send a detachment of ships to the Caribbean Sea and Washington is re-creating the 4th Fleet which was originally disbanded in 1950 which will constantly cruise off South American shores.

Asymmetric Answer

The standoff between Moscow and Washington enters a new phase. Between 10 and 14 November, immediately after the American presidential elections, joint exercises between the Bolivar Republic’s Navy and the Russian Pacific Fleet (sic) will take place in the territorial waters of Venezuela, or more exactly, in the Caribbean Sea which washes the shores of Central America. This is a first in the history of the Latin American continent. And although these maneuvers were planned last year (that is Commander in Chief of the Russian Navy Vladimir Vysotskiy has talked about sending a detachment of ships across the Atlantic without giving away any details), but after the entrance into the Black Sea by ships of the American 6th Fleet and other NATO navies, they took on a new quality; that is to say, a clear call upon the White House by the Kremlin.

That is attested by the announcement by the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin during a meeting with journalists on 02 September underlining that our reaction to the presence of American ships in the Black Sea will be adequate. Then, he didn’t give any specific details. He said, “You’ll see.” Now, after the Sunday edition of the Venezuelan program “Hello, President!” the head of the Venezuelan state Hugo Chavez announced to his countrymen that, “Ships of the Russian Navy are planning to visit Venezuela in the near future for a friendly port call,” and the official Venezuelan Navy spokesman Rear Admiral Salvadtor Cammarata Batistas even named the time frame in which the exercises were to be held as well as the participants, it has become completely clear that the exercises must be accomplished. Colonel Chavez also did not fail to mention that, “Venezuela is a strategic ally of Russia and in the framework of the proposed exercises the Venezuelan side, despite her meager resources, will do everything possible to ensure that the exercises that take place are of the highest quality.”

It is true that after Hugo Chavez corrected his admiral, he noticed that the training would take place in the November-December timeframe, but nothing has changed about the proposed maneuvers. A slight correction was applied to the announcement of Russian ships deploying to American shores and to the statements of Venezuelan officials. It turned out that the ships would come from the Northern Fleet and not the Pacific as earlier announced. The heavy missile cruiser (TRKR) Peter the Great, the large anti-submarine warfare (BPK) ship Admiral Chabanenko, a tanker and a fleet tug are participating. On the Venezuelan side, missile frigates, patrol boats, submarines and aviation assets will participate. Russian aviation will also make an appearance – anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft which will subsequently land at Caracas’ military airfield, and also strategic bombers and accompanying IL-78 tankers. American officials announced that they know about the proposed exercises. The assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere affairs Thomas Shannon said that, “The two sides have different intentions with regards to the exercises,” while a representative for the foreign political branch in Washington Sean McCormack even snarked, “The Russians found some ships that can make it that far.”

In the background to these announcements and situations which lurk in the relations between Caracas and Washington and between Washington and Moscow, it is becoming clear that the proposed naval exercises have already become not only an example of the cooperation between two navies, the Russian Navy and the Venezuelan Navy, but also, above all, a demonstration of political force and a clear signal to the White House: we can also deploy our task forces to your shores. Draw your own conclusions from that.

During a meeting of the European countries this summer, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced that she doesn’t like the flights of the “Bears” (Tu-95MS) along the coast of America. And last Saturday, 30 August, Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev expressed his dissatisfaction with the delivery of humanitarian aid to Georgia by US warships. He noted that, “It is interesting how they (the USA) would feel if we delivered humanitarian aid to the countries of the Caribbean basin that recently suffered from hurricanes using our warships”. And the latest announcement about the Caribbean deployment, practically to the southern shores of the United States shows that Moscow and Washington aren’t planning on greeting one another with a “friendly dip of the ensigns”. As to what that could lead to isn’t hard to imagine.

The Exercise Scenario

It became known to the Nezavisimoe Boennoe Obozrenie that in addition to the thousands of personnel who will accompany the four ship surface task force (including a battalion of marines), submarines will also go to Venezuela. First and foremost nuclear submarines. Multi-role as well as strategic. Strategic Tu-95MS bombers of the type that annoyed Rice and her colleagues in the US government will also fly there in the framework of the “complex of exercises”.

In addition, as opposed to the exercises that took place in December and January 2008 in the Atlantic Ocean, when those bombers made a circle above the Russian ships and went home, now these planes will make a landing at airfields in Caracas, seemingly demonstrating that the “Bear” flights can be more than training flights; that the USA is as vulnerable to military threats as the USA poses to other countries. And the American anti-missile system in Europe cannot guarantee the absolute security of Washington like they suppose it can. And most of all Russia now has a reliable ally in Latin America.

It is true that four Russian ships off the coast of Venezuela, even operating jointly with submarines and strategic bombers wont change the weather in the area. The United States has rather more political, diplomatic, economic, financial and military power potential to show Russia who is the boss in the Caribbean basin. And to reinforce Russian forces in the area would require a build up in Venezuela, on Cuba or wherever else and the construction of serious military and navy bases and construction of the corresponding infrastructure – piers, barracks, resort facilities, warehouses for ammunition and fuel, POL as well as the ability to defend these facilities from the land, sea and air with supporting systems of reconnaissance, communications, radio-electronic warfare and other systems. A pair of IL-78 tankers would have to be maintained there on a permanent basis. In one word, a lot of money would have to be spent on this.

Whether Moscow is prepared for this kind of investment is an open question. An equally good question is for how long the friendship with the Chavez regime will last. There are optimistic historical precedents in Cuba and Chile for partnership with Russia in Latin America.

Blogger U-96: "Humanitarian Aid to Venezuela Season is Now Open"

Really, there must be an easier way to deliver arms Pampers to Venezuela than in the bomb bay of a Tu-160. You'd think that Petr Veliki could deliver a lot more.

Who knew that Russian bloggers could be so snarky?

Peter the Great to Venezuela

(Petr Veliki in Severomorsk, August 1997, author's Photo)


The official spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Andrey Nestorenko announced that the Petr Veliki, the Admiral Chabanenko, the supply ship Ivan Bubnov and the salvage tug Nilokay Chirikin as well as submarines and anti-submarine aircraft will deploy to take part in exercises with Venezuela in the Carribean 10-14 November, 2008. The Ministry of Defense cofirmed that the exercises were planned during Hugo Chavez's visit to Moscow in July.


(Large anti-submarine ship Admiral Chabanenko during FRUKUS-2007, June 2007, author's photo)