There have been rumors going around for a few years that Russia was talking with Syria about using Tartus as a base. Currently, the Russian Navy has a fleet based at Sevastopol in the Black Sea, but their are two problems with that: first to get out of the Black Sea into the Med and beyond, Russian ships have to pass through two narrow straits the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, (both located in Turkey, currently a member of NATO) meaning it’s a real bottleneck for the Russians; the other problem is that the base at Sevastopol is actually leased from Ukraine, but only until 2017 and the Ukrainians are not keen on renewing it. Tartus has been talked about from time to time as a new location for the Black Sea fleet for when the lease runs out.
Russia has already sent a ship to Tartus to begin work on the facilities there. With access to a new port, the Russian Navy is likely to become more active in the Mediterranean Sea. In the past year the Russian military has been conducting operations around the world in a way not seen since the fall of the Soviet Union. Those operations have included exercises in the Atlantic by a large Naval task force, long-range bomber flights in the Arctic and even along the East Coast of the United States, and later this month a joint operation with Venezuela's navy in the Caribbean Sea.
Russia has also been increasing their military ties with Syria, especially since Russia's conflict with Georgia in August. There's been some speculation that Russia has cozied up to Syria in the past few weeks to annoy Israel because Israel had played a role in training and equipping Georgia's military.
The Soviet Union had maintained a supply base at Tartus, but it fell into disuse when the Soviet Union broke up in 1991. Fixing the old base up though likely signals that Russia intends to return to the Med on a permanent basis.
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