Russia sends sanctioned ships to Mediterranean as NATO tracks 'Syrian Express' convoy

Russia's navy has returned to the Mediterranean for the first time in two months, ending what military sources described as the first interruption to its Mediterranean presence since 2013 — with ships reportedly detected switching off their tracking transponders before passing through the Strait of Gibraltar. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior European military source said the "Syrian Express" ships had arrived at the Syrian port of Tartus on Monday. The informal name "Syrian Express" refers to Moscow's maritime logistics network that transfers military supplies, weapons, and equipment between Russian ports and Tartus. It has been running intermittently since Russia's military intervention in Syria in 2015, frequently involving sanctioned vessels that have also been associated with Russia's broader shadow fleet, which Moscow uses to circumvent Western sanctions. The latest Russian convoy included the sanctioned cargo vessel Sparta, the sanctioned tanker General Skobelev, and the replenishment ship Akademik Pashin, all escorted by the destroyer Admiral Levchenko. Tight European surveillance Despite its return to the Mediterranean, Russia's navy remains under tight European surveillance. The ships in question were closely tracked by the Italian Carabinieri frigate as they sailed through the central Mediterranean after they were spotted at Gibraltar. Euronews obtained exclusive photos of the Italian frigate alongside the Russian ships. Tracking data from the specialised website MarineTraffic indicates that the vessels switched off their automatic identification system (AIS) transponders — which automatically broadcast ships' identity, position, speed, and course — before passing through the Strait of Gibraltar. Britain deployed three ships — HMS Duncan, HMS St Albans and HMS Severn — to monitor the convoy as it sailed through the English Channel. The military source told Euronews that in recent months, Syrian express ships have begun cutting off AIS transponders even "more frequently" than in the past, with this practice almost becoming "systematic". Russia retains post-al-Assad presence in Syria Tartus is Russia's only naval base outside the former Soviet Union and its sole resupply and maintenance point in the Mediterranean. The Soviet Union established the facility in 1971 under a lease agreement with Damascus, using it to sustain its Mediterranean fleet during the Cold War. Russia intervened militarily in Syria in September 2015, entering the country's civil war on the side of Bashar al-Assad at a moment when his forces were losing ground to opposition groups. Moscow initially said its strikes were targeting the so-called Islamic State terrorist group, but international organisations documented that the majority of Russian air strikes hit opposition-held civilian areas, with the Airwars monitoring group assessing that those strikes resulted in the deaths of more than 14,000 Syrian civilians. The nine-year campaign in Syria was the Kremlin's most significant military participation in a war outside the former Soviet Union before its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. When the al-Assad regime finally collapsed in December 2024, Russian warships evacuated from Tartus within days — a precautionary move to avoid being seized or denied departure. In August, Damascus announced it had reached a deal with Moscow to retain Russia's future presence in the two military bases it has in the country. On 9 August, Syria’s state news agency SANA quoted the Foreign Ministry as saying the Hmeimim airbase and Tartus naval base would become “joint training and capacity-building centres” under new arrangements aimed at preserving "mutual interests". The senior European military source outlined several factors which are hindering Moscow's ability to maintain its presence in the Mediterranean including Russia's ageing navy, European sanctions against its shadow fleet, as well as Ukrainian naval and aerial drones targeting its Black Sea fleet. European and Ukrainian pressure on the shadow fleet is also pushing Russia to deploy military escorts for its oil tankers.