NATO says it is shadowing Russian ships in the Mediterranean

NATO’s Allied Maritime Command said this week that its ships are keeping a constant watch on Russian naval activity from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean, with Standing NATO Maritime Group 2 tracking Russian vessels transiting the Mediterranean as part of that effort.

The command, known as MARCOM, did not name a specific Russian ships or aircraft involved in the current monitoring in its social media post, saying only that its forces “remain alert 24/7” across NATO’s northern and southern flanks. The post included a photograph of a Russian Ka-27 naval helicopter, marked with the tail number RF-19160 and the numeral 51, flying near what appears to be a NATO warship at sea and a Russian naval group and escorted merchant vessels.

Standing NATO Maritime Group 2, known as SNMG2, is one of four permanently active multinational naval forces NATO keeps at sea, alongside a sister group in the Atlantic and two mine-countermeasures groups. SNMG2 typically draws ships from the U.S., France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey and the U.K., and its main job in the Mediterranean is building a continuous picture of naval activity in the region, including the presence of Russian Navy units transiting the area.

That kind of shadowing has produced several public incidents this year. In one recent case, the Italian frigate Virginio Fasan, operating with SNMG2, tracked the Russian Kilo-class submarine Krasnodar as it moved through the Mediterranean, escorted by the Russian destroyer Severomorsk. NATO ships have also monitored Russian frigates Admiral Golovko and Admiral Grigorovich in the eastern Mediterranean over the past year, according to Spain’s Ministry of Defence.

NATO has used the phrase “We. Are. Watching.” in similar public statements before, including in December 2024, when it publicized the Portuguese Navy’s escort of Russian ships through the Mediterranean using frigates NRP Álvares Cabral and NRP Sines. The recurring messaging is part of what NATO describes as routine maritime security operations, rather than a response to a specific new provocation.