Moscow (ANTARA News/AFP) - Russia "over the next few days" will be sending an anti-submarine ship and a missile cruiser to the Mediterranean as the West prepares for possible strikes against Syria, the Interfax news agency said on Thursday.

"The well-known situation shaping up in the eastern Mediterranean called for certain corrections to the make-up of the naval forces," a source in the Russian General Staff told Interfax.

"A large anti-submarine ship of the Northern Fleet will join them (the existing naval forces) over the next few days.

"Later it will be joined by the Moskva, a rocket cruiser of the Black Sea Fleet which is now wrapping up its tasks in the northern Atlantic and will soon begin a Transatlantic voyage towards the Strait of Gibraltar."

In addition, a rocket cruiser of the Pacific Fleet, the Varyag, will join the Russian naval forces in the Mediterranean this autumn by replacing a large anti-submarine ship.

However, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited a high-ranking representative of the naval command who said the changes to the country`s forces in the region were not linked to the current tensions over Syria and called them "a planned rotation." (*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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