"5th Mediterranean Squadron of Navy Ships"

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The 5th (Mediterranean) Squadron of Navy Ships (until June 1, 1981); from June 1, 1981 to December 1, 1983 - the 5th Operational Squadron of Navy Ships; from December 1, 1983 to December 31, 1985 and from October 1, 1989 - the 5th Operational Squadron of Ships; from December 31, 1985 to October 1, 1989 - the 5th Operational Flotilla of Ships) - an operational association of Navy ships of the USSR Armed Forces, intended to solve combat missions in the Mediterranean theater of hostilities during the Cold War.

The main potential enemy of the 5 Opesk in the Mediterranean was the 6th U.S. Navy Operational Fleet. The flotilla was disbanded on December 31, 1992, after the collapse of the USSR. The operational squadron was revived in 2013 as an operational unit of the Russian Navy in the Mediterranean Sea.

Background to the creation of the squadron
After the end of World War II, the Mediterranean was dominated by the US, British, and since 1949 by the collective NATO-OTAN naval forces. One of the main goals of their post-war presence in the Mediterranean region was to weaken the increased influence of the USSR on the states of South-Eastern Europe and North Africa and “intimidate the Soviet Union with the creation of a full-scale nuclear missile threat.”

In the 1950s, the U.S. 6th Fleet, permanently operating in the Mediterranean, was a source of nuclear threat to the USSR. Deck bombers based on the aircraft carriers of the 6th Fleet were carriers of nuclear weapons (nuclear bombs) and could be used to deliver nuclear strikes from sea directions on objects located in the southwestern part of the USSR. The overwhelming superiority of the combined NATO naval forces in the Mediterranean Sea ensured a high degree of combat stability of the aircraft carriers.

By the early 1960s, thanks to the construction of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines in the United States, the nature of the nuclear threat from the United States had undergone qualitative changes. The secrecy of SSBN operations and the possibility of launching ballistic missiles from almost any direction and range increased the affected area of the Soviet Union, while reducing the ability to repel a nuclear missile attack. In March 1963, regular combat patrols of American SSBNs began in the Mediterranean from the formed 16th Squadron of US Navy nuclear submarines (consisting of 9-10 units, of which about half were constantly at sea on combat duty). With the deployment of the naval base Rota (location of the 16th squadron) by the beginning of 1965, the main threat to the military security of the USSR from the south-western strategic direction was no longer aircraft carriers, but SSBNs deployed in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea.

The Soviet Navy in the first half of the 1960s was not yet able to create groups that would ensure the infliction of appropriate losses to the 6th fleet of the United States. The forces of the Black Sea Fleet, deployed in the Mediterranean Sea, did not have enough money