Russian warship heads for Syria's Tartus

The landing ship Nikolai Filchenkov of Russia's Black Sea Fleet left the port of Novorossiisk on Wednesday and headed for the Bosporus-Dardanelles strait. After passing through the zone, the ship will head for the Syrian port of Tartus, where a Russian naval technical support facility is located, a source at the Novorossiisk naval base told Itar-Tass on Wednesday. Nikolai Filchenkov, with an anti-terror group aboard, will deliver military property to Tartus. The ship was loaded when it moored at the Novorossiisk pier for five days, the source said. The Black Sea Fleet guard ship Smetlivy will accompany the Nikolai Filchenkov to Syria. The Smetlivy is planned to leave Sevastopol on September 12 and in one or two days to accompany the landing ship to Tartus, where the Smetlivy will not call, but wait near the port. After unloading, the two ships will head northward to join the naval group in the eastern part of the Mediterranean, the source said. According to the source, the Black Sea Fleet flagship -- the missile cruiser Moskva -- will join the group in the Mediterranean this week after a trans-Atlantic voyage and the small missile ship Shtil and the missile boat Ivanovets will join them in late September. Last Friday, the landing ship Novocherkassk of the Black Sea Fleet and the Minsk, from the Baltic Fleet, after passing through the strait zone reached the Mediterranean group, while the reconnaissance ship Priazovye of the Black Sea Fleet began to monitor the situation near the Syrian coast, the source said.