abstract:The Red Banner Northern Fleet (, Severnyy Flot) is a unit of the Russian Navy responsible for the defense of northwestern Russia. The fleet has access to the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans from bases on the Barents and Norwegian Seas.
Until it is known whether or not there was an explosion on board, or whether the vessel hit something, the Russian press remains bewildered as to why the flagship of the NorthernFleet is lying on the bottom of the Barents Sea, with 116 crew members on board.
It is worth noting that the landing craft in question, while they have not been named in any of the reporting, are very clearly not the landing craft from the Black Sea fleet that were at the center of the controversy in late June but totally different ships from the NorthernFleet.
If Russia was genuinely interested in providing some kind of naval assistance to its Syrian ally, or in conducting some sort of an evacuation, using ships from the NorthernFleet makes absolutely no sense: Russia has ships in the Black Sea that are much closer and that could be on station in a matter of days.