Russia announced Thursday that its navy was sent to the Mediterranean Sea, anticipating necessary defense of security in light of the situation in Syria.
Reuters reported that Russia put 16 warships onto the water, adding to three ship-based helicopters in the area, in the country's first deployment of a naval unit to the Mediterranean since the Soviet era.
Putin maintained that the release of the army units was not a move of "saber-rattling"-that is, not meant to threaten any nations-and that Russia was willing to work with NATO against piracy.
But as an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime that has been warring with opposition forces for almost three years, Moscow has automatically put itself in confliction with Western political stances on the issue of the civil war in Damascus.
"This is a strategically important region. We have our national interests here, linked to the need to maintain national security...we have tasks to carry out there to provide for the national security of the Russian Federation," Putin said today at a meeting with a group of military commanders.
During that same conference, Commander Yuri Zemskoy told Putin by video that the naval force was ready for anything.
"The group is ready to respond to unexpected tasks as the situation in the region is changing," Zemskoy said.
The West has largely viewed Russia's ocean activity-including immense naval practice that involved 36 warships and nearly 7,000 personnel in March and ship movements near the coast of Syria- as a public display of power, meant to scare away America and its allies.
Russia has a naval repair and supply building in Syria and has allegedly sold weapons to the Alawite government, keeping the transaction under wraps from the U.N. Security Council.
According to Bloomberg, The Eastern European nation has been upping its security surveillance and patrolling in the Mediterranean since 2010, when the seeds of unrest were just being planted in Syria.
