Um.... The United States Navy is really the only true global blue water navy in the world. No one else comes close.
When Russia sends a handful of warships to Cuba it's front page news, meanwhile the United States Navy operates entire fleets across the world on a daily basis. Just in comparison, the United States has nineteen aircraft carriers while Russia has... One. (France has four, Japan three, Italy and Indian have two, China has one....)
I don't think anyone was surprised by the fact that Russia could launch such missiles from such small boats, but more like we were wondering why.... Such small ships are barely sea worthy and would need to be resupplied quickly, making them worthless in combat. However, in this case.... These ships are not sea worthy at all. It's not like they are on the open ocean, but instead in the Caspian Sea, which is really the
largest lake in the world.