Russian sub carrying 20 nukes en route to Syria

Dmitri Donskoy is world's largest submarine and carries 200 nuclear warheads.

Staff, Macedonia Online
12 September 2015

The world’s largest submarine, the Dmitri Donskoy (TK-208), Nato-coded Typhoon, has set sail for the Mediterranean and is destined for the Syrian coast. Aboard the sub are 20 Bulava (NATO-code SS-N-30) intercontinental ballistic missiles with an estimated up to 200 nuclear warheads. Each missile, with a reported range of 10,000km, carries 6-10 MIRV nuclear warheads.
The Russian sub set sail from its northern base on Sept. 4, escorted by two anti-sub warfare ships. Their arrival at destination in 10 days time will top up the new Russian military deployment in Syria.
President Vladimir Putin’s introduction of a nuclear force opposite Syrian shores builds up what first looked like an operation to protect its own base in Tartus, but also offer assistance to Assad’s regime in Damascus. If required, Russia is bringing in a military expedition capable of an air and sea confrontation with US forces in the Middle East. The fact that the US military has decided not to communicate with Russian forces in Syria opens up a possibility to a conflict. Russia has had a base in Syria (Tartus) since 1971, believed to be the only deterrent for US not openly invading Syria, as it did to Iraq and Afghanistan.
US Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday, Sept. 5, expressed concern over reports of Russia’s “increasing military build-up in Syria” in a phone call to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The State Department reported: “The Secretary made clear that if such reports were accurate, these actions could further escalate the conflict, lead to greater loss of innocent life, increase refugee flows and risk confrontation with the anti-ISIL coalition operation in Syria.”
Kerry was referring to potential Russian 'interference' with US-led air strikes against the Islamic State in Syria. However, the US, Turkish Airstrikes in Syria appear to be aiding various terror groups seeking to take over the country rather than doing any damage to ISIS. In fact, no one is sure if the US has actually hit a single ISIS target, as the terror group has gotten stronger and taken more land, not weaker. According to officials in Moscow, if the US seriously tried to cause harm to ISIS, it could have wiped them out in a single weekend.
The dispatch of a nuclear sub to Syrian waters is taken as a strong message that the Kremlin will not let the US impede its military assistance to the Syrian Government and will go to extreme lengths to keep the way open for the flow of Russian hardware and personnel to protect its own base in Tartus.
This situation has gone a long way beyond Obama administration intentions when US-Russian talks were initially held for US forces posted in Turkey and Iraq, together with the Russian troops arriving in Syria, to launch a combined effort against the Islamic State. Those talks came to naught as we have reported dozen times, both countries have different business interests.