Permanent Deployment Of Kalibr Missile Carrying Russian Corvettes In Mediterranean

The Russian Navy corvettes equipped with Kalibr cruise missile will be permanently deployed in the Mediterranean, a Russian Navy admiral said.

The vessels from the Black Sea fleet will continue sailing as part of Russia’s naval group in the Mediterranean tasked with supporting anti-terrorist operations in Syria, Commander Admiral Alexander Vitko told RIA Novosti.

“Yes, we’ll have rotations and all the new ships, including the Buyan-M project vessels, will see combat duty there,” Vitko told the Russian news site. “The vessels with will be tasked with a number of tasks that they can perform through a wide range of weapons.”

With a range of roughly of 2,000 km, the supersonic 3M-54 Kalibr missiles is small enough to be carried by submarines and small warships. Furthermore the missile is capable of carrying both a conventional or nuclear warhead and is able to penetrate the enemy’s missile defense systems thus changing the calculus of the reach and effectiveness of smaller navy ships.