Moscow – Tensions between Russia and the West have risen further this week, with Russia conducting more military exercises in the Black Sea and massaging thousands of forces on the Ukrainian border. In a clear sign of cooling relations, the US ambassador to Moscow confirmed that he was leaving the country for “consultations” in the United States
More than 20 Russian ships took part in the latest exercises along with Su-25SM3 attack aircraft, as part of a control of fleet forces, the Russian Black Sea Fleet said on Tuesday.
Russia also announced that it was closing airspace over parts of Crimea and the Black Sea, and said the areas had been “declared temporarily dangerous for aircraft flights,” Russia’s Interfax news agency reported on Tuesday. , which cited an official notice sent to pilots.
Troops on the Ukrainian border
More than 100,000 Russian forces have massed on the Ukrainian and Crimean borders, said the office of the European Union’s foreign minister, Josep Borrell, after a briefing by Foreign Minister Ukraine.
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Crimea is the peninsula that President Vladimir Putin annexed unilaterally away from Ukraine in 2014. His government now considers it Russian territory and, although the US and Europe have refused to recognize the takeover, the army Russian has firm control over the outcrop of land in the Black Sea.
“It is the highest military deployment of the Russian army on the Ukrainian borders ever,” Borrell said. Initially, he said Russia had gathered more than 150,000 troops in the region, but his comments were later corrected without further details.
Satellite imaging company Maxar on Tuesday provided nearly a dozen images that it said showed increased movement and an influx of Russian military hardware into numerous locations in Crimea, Ukraine and near the shared border during the last weeks.
Satellite image © 2021 Maxar Technologies
The buildup has come amid rising hostilities in eastern Ukraine, where Russia-backed separatists have been locked in a slow-fire war with U.S.-backed armies and Ukrainian-European armies. since 2014. The increase in violence in eastern Ukraine has sparked possible international fear erupted in the so-called frozen conflict.
Although U.S. military officials have yet to see anything that suggests Russia is preparing for an impending cross-border incursion into Ukraine, the United States, the United Kingdom and European states have criticized Moscow for military buildup. .
The Kremlin has rejected all calls to withdraw troops and equipment, saying Russian forces are free to move through Russian territory as they see fit and respond to what Moscow calls “provocative” NATO alliance moves near the its borders.
Satellite image © 2021 Maxar Technologies
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that Moscow was not responsible for the rising tension. He called on other countries to refrain from “mass anti-Russian psychosis.”
Warships in the Black Sea
Last week, Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had closed navigation in some parts of the Black Sea to foreign military vessels and other official ships from mid-April to late October. The West condemned the measure.
SERGEY PIVOVAROV / REUTERS
U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price called it “a new unprovoked escalation in Moscow’s ongoing campaign to undermine and destabilize Ukraine” and “especially troubling amid credible reports of the buildup of Russian troops in occupied Crimea and around the borders of Ukraine “.
Two British warships were due to set sail for the Black Sea in May, The Sunday Times reported on Tuesday, citing UK naval sources. The deployment aims to show solidarity with NATO allies in Ukraine and Britain, the newspaper reported.
According to the report, a Type 45 destroyer armed with anti-aircraft missiles and a Type 23 anti-submarine frigate will detach from the task force of the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean and cross the Bosphorus to the Black Sea. RAF F-35B Lightning stealth planes and Merlin submarine fighter helicopters will be ready on the task force’s flagship, carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth said, according to the newspaper.
The Turkish government announced last week that the United States planned to deploy two warships in the Black Sea, but later said the Pentagon had canceled the deployment. U.S. officials never confirmed or denied that the deployment had been ordered, but a Pentagon spokesman noted that the U.S. ships had previously operated in the international waters of the Black Sea.
The US ambassador leaves
U.S. Ambassador John Sullivan said he would return to Washington this week for consultations after Russia’s Foreign Ministry suggested he do so amid a diplomatic crisis between the two countries.
“I think it’s important for me to speak directly with my new colleagues in the Biden administration in Washington about the current state of bilateral relations between the United States and Russia,” he said in statements released by the embassy. to Moscow.
Trump-appointed Sullivan said he intended to return to Moscow in the coming weeks, ahead of any meeting between Presidents Biden and Putin.
His departure followed Russia’s response to the latest round of U.S. sanctions, announced last week, which included the expulsion of ten U.S. diplomats from Russia and a ban on the U.S. embassy from hiring. any Russian staff.
Russia’s ambassador to the United States has been back in Moscow for a month, after the Foreign Ministry reminded him for consultations.