Russian Fleet Sails Again!

Some headlines recently blurted out the alarm that the Russian fleet was invading the English Channel.  Here's a good post from Peter Hitchens' weekly column, telling us all to calm down.

Look at the black smoke coming from the aircraft carrier Admiral Kutnetsov.  That just doesn't look right.

US ships shadowed them in the area, in case there was need of a tow.

In fact, a breakdown tug is accompanying the squadron!   russian-carrier-plagued-by-technical-problems/

This is the great Russian military we are supposed to be so afraid of.

Don't panic! They're just sad old wrecks 

How we love to frighten ourselves about those wicked Russians.

There was a sort of frenzy on Friday as portions of Moscow’s museum-piece fleet slogged past the White Cliffs of Dover, as if the Spanish Armada were at our gates.

Actually the Channel is an international waterway, and we don’t own it. Russia (whose Gross Domestic Product is smaller than Italy’s) is quite entitled to send her ships through it. And Russia is in no fit state to invade anything much larger than Rutland.

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There was a sort of frenzy on Friday as portions of Moscow’s museum-piece fleet slogged past the White Cliffs of Dover, as if the Spanish Armada were at our gates (pictured)

The Russian ships are handsome, but doddery. The ancient Soviet-era carrier, Admiral Kuznetsov, started life in a Ukrainian shipyard and was then named after the decrepit Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.

She left a shocking trail of black smoke as if she was burning coal.

Her main escort, the outwardly majestic Peter The Great (originally named after the KGB chief Yuri Andropov), recently spent two years rusting gently, tied up at Severomorsk. 

No wonder, given that  most of her class are unusable thanks to wonky nuclear reactors. 

The really sad thing is that, having madly scrapped our own carriers and sold off the Harriers that flew from them, not to mention axeing a huge number of destroyers and frigates, we have reduced our own naval power to a pathetic level. Is it perhaps envy that makes us so fretful? 

If Russia is now better at projecting power in the Middle East than we are, it is because we are weak by choice, not because Moscow is strong.

Russian warships sail down English Channel en route to Syria

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