Russian naval presence in the Mediterranean

In June 2026, the Russian Navy withdrew from the Mediterranean Sea, marking its first absence from the region since 2013. This withdrawal was driven by Turkey closing the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits to warships involved in the Ukraine conflict under the Montreux Convention, as well as the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, which limited access to the naval base in Tartous. During this period, Moscow redeployed naval assets to escort its ‘Shadow Fleet’ of sanctioned oil tankers through areas like the English Channel to avoid Western seizures.

By September 2026, the Russian Navy returned to the Mediterranean via a convoy known as the ‘Syrian Express.’ This maritime logistics network, used to transport military equipment to Tartus, included the destroyer Admiral Levchenko escorting sanctioned vessels such as the Sparta, the General Skobelev, and the Akademik Pashin. European forces, including the United Kingdom and Italy, maintained close surveillance of the convoy, noting that the vessels deactivated their Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponders while passing through the Strait of Gibraltar.