Home › Security › What Russian frigates off Syria signalled in March 2020
What Russian frigates off Syria signalled in March 2020
Summary
Two Kalibr-armed warships and diplomatic talks marked the Idlib escalation in the days before 2 March 2020.
What did the build-up around Idlib look like on 2 March 2020? By then, two developments had set the tone for the offensive in northwestern Syria, which ran from December 2019 to March 2020.
On 28 February 2020, Russia deployed two frigates, Admiral Makarov and Admiral Grigorovich, to the Eastern Mediterranean off the Syrian coast. Both were armed with Kalibr cruise missiles, which put a naval strike capability near the theatre while the escalation continued.
A day earlier, on 27 February 2020, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg held talks. The meeting took place amid the escalation in Idlib involving Syria and Russia, and it placed Turkey's involvement in the Syrian civil war on the alliance's diplomatic agenda.
Two tracks
Taken together, the reports show military reinforcement and diplomatic consultation moving in parallel. Russia added naval firepower in the Mediterranean, while Ankara turned to NATO's leadership as the fighting intensified. Neither report described what would follow, and the outcome remained open on 2 March 2020.
