The Pentagon Tuesday dismissed the deployment of Russia’s sole antiquated aircraft carrier to Syria as just “for show,” saying its small complement of fighter aircraft added no significant military advantage to Russian forces already in Syria.
“Anything they bring in from the outside, if it’s aircraft carriers, cruise missile launching from ships, long-range strike bombers flying in from Russia, those are done for show,” said Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman. “There’s not a kinetic effect that they bring that can’t already be brought with the forces that they have there.”
Some experts have suggested that Russian operations in Syria are being used as a way to shake the rust off a military that has been in decline over the past decade.
The aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov has a reputation as a creaky bucket of bolts that belches thick black smoke, and must be accompanied by an ocean-going tugboat because of its frequent breakdowns.
It has a fraction of the strike aircraft that are carried by an American supercarrier, and lacks a catapult system, so Russian planes must rely on a ski-jump on the bow to get sufficient lift to get airborne.
That also limits how much fuel the planes can carry on take-off.
On Sunday, a Russian Navy MiG-29K from the carrier went down in the Mediterranean Sea after taking off from the ship, but the cause the crash is unknown.
Davis suggested the Kuznetsov’s planes may actually be flying to Russia’s land base at Latakia for refueling, if they are actually being used for bombing runs.
“From a pure military perspective, Russia already has significant capabilities inside Syria. They have nearly two dozen strike aircraft that are based there,” Davis said.
“They’ve got mortar systems, tanks, artillery systems. From a pure law of physics standpoint, kinetics, there is nothing kinetically that they can’t achieve or would want achieve that they can’t already do with the forces that are there.”
