Russia holds naval drills as U.S. vessel heads to Black Sea

01:01 28/4/2021 - Πηγή: Armynow

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia’s Black Sea fleet launched naval combat exercises on Tuesday as a U.S. coastguard vessel made its way to the region amid simmering tensions between Russia and the West.

Moscow recently alarmed Kyiv and Western capitals by building

up its forces along the Ukrainian border, though last week it ordered a withdrawal of some troops.

Russia’s Black Sea fleet said on Tuesday its Moskva cruiser would hold live-fire drills with other ships and military helicopters, the Interfax news agency reported.

The fleet’s announcement came hours after U.S. Naval Forces in Europe said cutter Hamilton, a U.S. Coast Guard vessel, was moving into the Black Sea to work with NATO allies and partners in the region.

Russia has accused the United States and NATO of fuelling military tensions in Europe. It has said the Russian troop build-up near the Ukrainian border were part of drills in response to what it called NATO’s threatening behaviour.

Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday that Russia had not pulled back its forces from the Ukrainian border because of external pressure, adding that Moscow moved troops around on its own territory as it saw fit.

“The actions of the U.S. and NATO in the European region to increase the combat readiness of troops and strengthen their forward presence is contributing to an increase in military danger,” Shoigu said in comments circulated by the defence ministry.

Kyiv and the West have said it is too early to assess Russia’s troop drawdown.

“We cannot guarantee 100% that Russian troops won’t turn around,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a statement on Tuesday.

A senior U.S. defence official told Reuters on Friday it was seeing some Russian personnel withdrawing and that Moscow’s announcement of its redeployment alone was “insufficient to give us comfort.”

Relations between Moscow and Kyiv have been dire since Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula in 2014 and backed a pro-Russian separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine.

Reporting by Maxim Rodionov in Moscow and Matthias Williams and Natalia Zinets in Kyiv; Writing by Alexander Marrow/Tom Balmforth/Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Gareth Jones

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