The head of the former Soviet nation's navy hints at a plan for a permanent Mediterranean base. 
JERUSALEM -- Days after Russia sent the diplomatic world reeling with its audacious flag-planting beneath the ice of the North Pole, the Kremlin is moving to reassert itself in warmer climes as well, plotting the return of the Russian fleet to a Syrian port on the Mediterranean Sea.
The head of the Russian navy announced that he wanted next to plant the white-blue-and-red Russian banner in the Middle East. The new Russian strategy envisions returning warships to a Soviet-era naval base at the port of Tartus.
"The Mediterranean Sea is very important strategically for the Black Sea fleet," Admiral Vladimir Masorin said as he toured a Russian base in the Ukrainian port city of Sevastopol. "I propose that, with the involvement of the Northern and Baltic fleets, the Russian navy should restore its permanent presence there."
It would mark the first time Russia has established a military presence outside the borders of the former Soviet Union since the USSR fell apart in 1991.
"It's a symbol, the planting of a flag. Just like the one Russia put under the North Pole," said Alexei Malashenko, an expert on the Muslim world at the Carnegie Moscow Center. The intent, he said, is to declare that Russia has returned to the Middle East, where Moscow held wide influence during the Cold War, backing the socialist regimes of Syria, Iraq and Egypt against U.S.-supported Israel.
It's a move many in Israel and the United States will have trouble separating from a broader pattern of renewed Russian support for countries and groups Washington and Tel Aviv see as enemies.
"The Russians are coming" read a front-page headline in Monday's edition of Israel's mass-circulation Yediot Aharonot newspaper. "A Russian flag on Syrian soil has significant strategic implications. Firstly, it challenges the United States and the dominance of the Sixth Fleet stationed in the Mediterranean. Secondly, with its actual presence in Syria, Russia is announcing that it is actively participating in any process and conflict in the Middle East, that it has a stance of its own and that it must be reckoned with," the article read.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and President George W. Bush have both gone to great lengths to insist the two countries are not on the verge of another Cold War. But the Kremlin and the White House, already butting heads in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, are increasingly at odds across this volatile region.
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