{"id":66177,"date":"2025-08-22T08:32:26","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T05:32:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/royal-navy-tracks-russian-destroyer-through-the-english-channel\/66177\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T08:32:26","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T05:32:26","slug":"royal-navy-tracks-russian-destroyer-through-the-english-channel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/royal-navy-tracks-russian-destroyer-through-the-english-channel\/66177\/","title":{"rendered":"Royal Navy Tracks Russian Destroyer Through the English Channel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Royal Navy has tracked a Russian destroyer and two accompanying vessels through the English Channel, its latest mission to keep an eye on Russia&#039;s frequent naval movements in British waters.<\/p>\n<p>The mission began when patrol ship HMS <em>Trent <\/em>picked up the trail of the Russian destroyer <em>Vice Admiral Kulakov<\/em> off Great Yarmouth. On August 10, <em>Trent <\/em>was seen following <em>Kulakov <\/em>westbound through the English Channel, bracketed by a steady stream of &quot;shadow fleet&quot; tankers. Ship spotter Dover Strait Shipping identified more than a dozen Russia-linked tankers passing through during a 24-hour time period around <em>Kulakov&#039;s <\/em>transit.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Clockwise from upper left: Skobelev, Sparta, Vice Admiral Kulakov, HMS Trent (Royal Navy)<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Kulakov <\/em>continued onward to waters off Ushant, where the destroyer met up with the Russian military ro\/ro cargo ship <em>Sparta<\/em>, a well-known and heavily-sanctioned vessel. AIS data suggests that <em>Sparta <\/em>was on a return voyage from the former Russian naval base at Tartus, where Russian forces have been demobilizing equipment. The tanker <em>General&nbsp;Skobelev <\/em>&#8211; often used by Russian forces as a fleet oiler &#8211; was sailing with <em>Sparta <\/em>and joined the&nbsp;convoy. Together, they turned and headed eastbound to go back through the channel. After a brief pause in Lyme Bay, off Britain&#039;s southern coast, they made the transit&nbsp;into the North Sea, then north to the Kattegat&nbsp;and into the Baltic.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"\/media\/images\/article\/Photos\/Charts_Graphs\/Sparta-Skobelev-Aug-2025-Pole-Star.jpg\" style=\"width:1000px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Sparta (green) and General Skobelev (red) on the long voyage from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Baltic (<a href=\"http:\/\/polestarglobal.com\">Pole Star<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>HMS <em>Trent <\/em>followed <em>Kulakov <\/em>throughout the round-trip voyage through the English Channel, according to the Royal Navy, as is standard practice when Russian warships transit UK waters.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Vice Admiral Kulakov<\/em> is an Udaloy-class antisubmarine warfare destroyer, built to challenge the U.S. Navy&#039;s sub fleet in the late years of the Cold War. She was commissioned in 1981, entered a refit period in 1991, and returned to active duty 19 years later. A dedicated antisubmarine warfare platform, <em>Kulakov <\/em>carries a missile-launched torpedo system as her primary weapon, not a purpose-built anti-ship missile system. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>maritime-executive<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; The Royal Navy has tracked a Russian destroyer and two accompanying vessels through the English Channel, its latest mission to keep an eye on Russia&#039;s frequent naval movements in British waters. The mission began when patrol ship HMS Trent picked up the trail of the Russian destroyer Vice Admiral Kulakov off Great Yarmouth. On &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":66178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[2726,2867,9416,28286,1089,1527,292,5579],"class_list":["post-66177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-maritime-news","tag-channel","tag-destroyer","tag-english","tag-hms-trent-escorts-vice-admiral-kulakov-royal-navy","tag-navy","tag-royal","tag-russian","tag-tracks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/66178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}