ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION)<br/> <br />STORY: The Russian destroyer "Smetlivyi" left its home among the Black Sea Fleet in the Ukrainian harbour Sevastopol on Thursday and is headed towards the Syrian coast.<br/> <br />It is the latest in a series of war ships that Moscow has sent to the region as Russia rotates its navy vessels in the Mediterranean.<br/> <br />Russia, an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, says its vessels in the eastern Mediterranean guarantee security as the United States considers launching military strikes to punish Damascus for its alleged use of chemical weapons.<br/> <br />U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry flew into Geneva on Thursday to hear Russia's plans to disarm Syria of its chemical weapons and avert U.S.-led military strikes, an initiative that has transformed diplomacy in the two-and-a-half-year-old civil war.<br/> <br />The eleventh-hour Russian initiative interrupted a Western march to war, persuading President Barack Obama to put on hold a plan for military stri
