Russia sent a fleet of more than 20 warships to launch several cruise missiles into the Black Sea on Tuesday, days after challenging President Biden’s demand that the nation withdraw its military offensive against neighboring Ukraine.
The video released by the TASS news agency, a state-run cabling service largely known as the Kremlin’s propaganda outlet, showed Admiral Essen, a massive Russian naval frigate, launching a series of missiles into the air. .
The agency described it as “a joint exercise.”
News of the exercise comes amid tensions in the region, with Biden declaring a national emergency last Thursday, which sanctioned more than three dozen people in Russia and expelled ten diplomats.
At the same time, he rejected plans to send two U.S. warships to the Black Sea.
Subsequently, Russian President Vladimir Putin closed the Kerch Strait to foreign warships until next fall.
Since the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia has supported pro-Russian insurgents in neighboring republics, including the strengthening of the allied states of Georgia and Moldova.
Putin presided over the annexation of Crimea in 2014 without Ukraine’s consent to a rare current border change by force.
Deployments of Russian troops are often murky, but it is believed that Putin’s government has deployed troops to Crimea to facilitate the annexation of 2014 and has secretly supported a couple of separatist provinces in the Donbas region, in the is from Ukraine.
The Kremlin has continued to increase its military presence in the region, specifically with its naval ships in the Black Sea.
Over the weekend, he sent two more warships and 15 smaller ships to join the fleet he already has on this waterway.
Military movements take place amid a tussle between Washington and Moscow over sanctions and other diplomatic ranks.
After Biden announced a series of new U.S. sanctions on Russia late last week, Moscow responded by saying it would expel ten U.S. diplomats in retaliation.
It did not include in that list, however, U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan, appointed under former President Donald Trump and so far retained by Biden.
Late last week, the Kremlin urged the Biden administration to convene Sullivan in the United States for face-to-face talks on intense tensions between the two countries, which the ambassador initially refused.
Sullivan relented Monday, saying in a statement he would return home a week while promising to return.
“I think it’s important for me to speak directly with my new colleagues at the Biden administration in Washington about the current state of bilateral relations between the United States and Russia,” his statement said.
“Also, I haven’t seen my family in over a year and that’s another important reason to come home to visit,” he continued. “I will return to Moscow in the coming weeks before any meeting between Presidents Biden and Putin.”
With publishing cables