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Russian Navy cruiser |
Russia's one-dominant navy is being returned to power, and it already has been successful in taking over Georgia's Black Sea port of Poti," according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
Officials say the navy is being refurbished and expanded and will be used to respond to what Russians perceive as growing threats to their security interests.
"We are already building practically as many ships as we did in Soviet times," First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said during a recent visit to Severodvinsk. "The problem now is not lack of money, but how to optimize production so that the navy can get new ships three, not five, years after laying them down."
The nation's economy has improved because of the rise in the price of oil, so there has been a significant increase in defense spending to include more ships under construction as well as a plan to refit some older ships.
Moscow already has in place a recently approved rearmament program that runs through 2015. Now for the first time in Soviet and Russian history, development of the navy will almost equal the increase in strategic nuclear forces. The program covering the period until 2015 is expected to replace 45 percent of the navy inventory.
Russia intends to bolster its four fleets and one flotilla of the Black Sea Fleet based in Sevastopol, Ukraine; the Russian Northern Fleet headquartered at Severomorsk, Russia; the Pacific Fleet headquartered in Vladivostok, Russia; the Baltic Fleet headquartered in Kaliningrad, Russia; and the Caspian Flotilla headquartered in Astrakhan, Russia. The improvements are to be used to guard Russia's interests.
"We'll do all we can to build up our presence where Russia has strategic interests," Russian Navy Commander Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky recently said.
With greater Black Sea access, Russia will have more opportunity to use the ports as bases from which to project power into the Mediterranean and then on to the Atlantic.
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