You're right! A squiddy friend of mine tells me "we had firing solutions on the Russians from the time they cleared the bar at Murmansk until they were alongside or anchored at Caracas."
He also said the Russians were only escorted by two attack boats which was unusual because back in the day that kind of task force would have had layers of nuc boats running ahead of the fleet to clear the seas for them.
You ‘squiddy friend’ was telling you the truth.