Somewhere in the autumn gales and squalls of the North Sea, Russia's only aircraft carrier is heading south to war.
According to TASS news agency, the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier and seven more vessels sailed Saturday from the Northern Fleet's Arctic headquarters of Severomorsk. It's the eighth time the ship and its escorts have made the journey to the Mediterranean, a trip that has become a key part of Russian President Vladimir Putin's strategy to reassert Moscow's naval strength and reach.
This deployment, though, is very different. Moscow has spent considerable resources over the last decade developing the ability to conduct operations from the carrier, launched in the dying days of the Soviet Union. But unlike its U.S., French, British and Italian counterparts, it has never used the ship in anger. That's about to change. Perhaps within as little as two weeks, its SU-33 and MiG-29 jets will be slamming ordinance into Aleppo and other parts of Syria.