Russia Turkey

RUSSIA VIOLATES BOSPHORUS PROTOCOL WITH TURKEY WITH ARMED LAUNCHERS AT THE READY IN TURKISH STRAIGHTS…….

Looks like the ante has been upped……..

Shoulder-fired peace cruises in the Bosporus: Russian sailor on the deck of Russian landing ship Tsesar Kunikov, 4 Dec 2015. (Image: Emre Dagdeviren via Twitter, UK Express)

Turkey Complains After Russian Sailor Shoulders Missile Launcher In The Bosphorus https://t.co/r9KYSmSsR9 pic.twitter.com/DYvjlHqp1t

— The Interpreter (@Interpreter_Mag) December 7, 2015

Provocation: Sailor seen with MANPAD on Russian warship transiting Bosporus

By J.E. Dyer on December 7, 2015 at 11:28 pm

This incident reportedly occurred the morning of 4 December.

Shoulder-fired peace cruises in the Bosporus: Russian sailor on the deck of Russian landing ship Tsesar Kunikov, 4 Dec 2015. (Image: Emre Dagdeviren via Twitter, UK Express)

The Ropucha-class tank landing ship Tsesar Kunikov (BDK-158) was heading from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, conducting a southbound transit of the Turkish Straits. (As documented at the excellent Bosphorus Naval News blog, BDK-158 has been back and forth through the Turkish Straits several times over the last few months. The ship was most recently off Syria in November, and returned to the Black Sea on 25 November before Friday’s southbound transit.)

Turkish media reported that a Russian sailor was photographed on the deck with a shoulder-fired missile launcher in the firing position during the transit.

The image shows a man with what appears to be a 9K38 Igla (SA-18 “Grouse”) anti-air missile launcher – a man-portable air defense system, or MANPAD – on an upper deck of the Tsesar Kunikov. Additional views of the event were spread far and wide via Twitter.

manpad 2

The implied threat would be to surveillance aircraft operated by Turkey over the Bosporus.

Experienced Navy sailors will recognize that this kind of display is prohibited for peacetime straits passage under any maritime law regime – including the Montreux Convention, which specifically governs passage in the Turkish Straits. The Turkish Straits are not a set of international straits; they fall within the borders of Turkey, and are managed by Turkey under the terms of the Montreux Convention. One of the terms is that warships transiting the straits do not engage in displays of threatening force – i.e., displays like the one seen on Friday with the SA-18 MANPAD.

Russia, of course, appears to be responding to Turkey’s shootdown of a Russian Su-24 Fencer at the border of Syria and Turkey on 24 November. Although both incidents may seem to unengaged Westerners like unnecessary provocations, the extent of what’s actually happening in Syria – the jockeying for tactical position on the ground, with Russia and Turkey increasingly at odds – gives the exchange of eye-pokes serious weight.

More here.

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