The most modern Russian frigate “Admiral Gorshkov”, the first equipped with a hypersonic missile “Zircon”, took off from its base in Severomorsk in the Murmansk region (northwest Russia) a few days ago and is heading for the Mediterranean Sea, being pursued. Close to NATO, the French newspaper Le Figaro reported on Monday, as quoted by News.ro.

The Russian frigate “Amiral Gorshkov” is equipped with a hypersonic missile “Zirkon”.Photo: Pavlo Lviv / Sputnik / Profimedia

On January 6, a P3-Orion maritime patrol aircraft from Squadron 333 of the Norwegian Navy closely followed the route of a Russian ship sailing in international waters off the coast of this NATO member state, north of the Lofoten Islands to be exact, they announced. The next day, the Oslo authorities. It is about the most modern Russian frigate “Admiral Gorshkov”, which entered service in 2018.

After several months of modernization, completed in a January 4 ceremony attended by Vladimir Putin via video conference, the Admiral Gorshkov became the first Russian ship to be equipped with the Zircon, the only hypersonic cruise missile in the world today. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that the ship will be sent on a long-term mission to the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean.

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After leaving the base in Severomorsk, the headquarters of Russia’s Northern Fleet, located in the Murmansk region, the frigate passed through the Barents Sea and then the Norwegian Sea, where it was spotted by a Norwegian patrol. All indications are that it is now further south in the North Sea. Although the ship “Admiral Gorshkov” is sailing without activation of the automatic identification system AIS (Automatic Identification System), which allows determining the location of ships, this does not apply to the accompanying oil tanker Kama, which was spotted on January 8. at 23:00: 55 GMT (January 9, 1:55 Romanian time) southwest of Norway and only 900 kilometers from the Pas de Calais strait, which connects the North Sea and the English Channel. The frigate Admiral Gorshkov is likely to pass through this strait soon and then enter the Atlantic Ocean before entering the Mediterranean through the Strait of Gibraltar in about a week.

In the MEDOR, as sailors call the eastern part of this sea, the Russian frigate is expected to encounter many Russian ships already there, as well as a very large concentration of NATO warships. Tensions in the region, which began several years ago after the war in Syria, increased after the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

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Why the Admiral Gorshkov frigate cannot enter the Black Sea

However, despite the formidable armament it carries, the ship “Admiral Gorshkov” will not change anything in the conflict between Moscow and the Ukrainians. Due to the fact that the Turks have closed the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, according to the Montreux Convention, the Russian frigate will not be able to enter the Black Sea and will be forced to stay in the eastern Mediterranean. Under these conditions, it would be impossible for it to launch missiles in the direction of Kyiv, unless Moscow deliberately chose to have them cross the territories of several NATO member states, which would mean a serious escalation. In addition, it would not make much sense from an operational point of view, since Russian ships in the Black Sea can independently perform ground tasks.

The use of the new Zircon hypersonic missile may be politically symbolic, but the Russian Air Force has already announced the use of the Kinzhal missile, an airborne hypersonic missile carried by bombers, in Ukraine.

During the launch of the “Amiral Gorshkov” ship, Serhiy Shoigu declared his “confidence” that the supersonic missile will pass “any modern anti-missile system of today”. One can only expect that at some point, during the deployment of the frigate, the missile will be tested, writes Le Figaro.

“The ship’s crew will conduct training with hypersonic (this is the Zircon) and long-range weapons (probably another Kalibr missile is meant),” Minister Shoigu said.

In fact, the Zircon missile, which entered service on January 4, is a hypersonic missile, as its speed is five times greater than the speed of sound – in this case it even reaches Mach 9, that is, almost 11,000 km/h. At the same time, it can have a complex trajectory, unlike ordinary ballistic missiles. The Caliber family of missiles is more traditional, the land-based version being the Russian equivalent of the American Tomahawk missile. They are already in use in Ukraine and have a range of 2,000-2,500 km (versus 1,000-1,500 km for Zircon).

Otherwise, the presence of a Russian frigate near some NATO ships and territories is a particular deterrent, as is the role assigned to older Russian cruisers and destroyers that spent several months in MEDOR starting on 24 February. And if Admiral Gorshkov is indeed the flagship of the Russian fleet, its relative uniqueness underscores the limits of this aging fleet, concludes Le Figaro.

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