Russia on Tuesday sent a fleet of more than 20 warships to launch multiple cruise missiles into the Black Sea – days after it dropped President Biden’s demand that the country launch its military offensive against neighboring Ukraine.
In the video released by the TASS news agency, a civil service largely known as a propaganda outlet for the Kremlin, Admiral Essen, a massive Russian naval frigate, launched a series of missiles into the air. see.
The agency described it as a “joint exercise”.
The news of the ‘exercise’ comes amid heightened tensions in the region, with Biden declaring a state of national emergency last Thursday, imposing sanctions on more than three dozen people in Russia and expelling ten diplomats.
At the same time, he scrapped plans to send two American warships to the Black Sea.
Russian President Vladimir Putin then closed Kerch Strait to foreign warships until the next fall.
Since the outbreak of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia has supported pro-Russian insurgents in neighboring republics – including the suspension of Allied breakaway countries in Georgia and Moldova.
In 2014, Putin presided over the annexation of Crimea without the consent of Ukraine in a rare contemporary border change with violence.
The deployment of Russian troops is often obscure, but Putin’s government has reportedly deployed troops to Crimea to facilitate annexation in 2014 and secretly support some breakaway provinces in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
The Kremlin continued to increase its military presence in the region, specifically with its naval ships in the Black Sea.
Over the weekend, it sent two more warships and 15 smaller vessels to join the navy it already has in that waterway.
The military moves come amid a fair dispute between Washington and Moscow over sanctions and other diplomatic ranks.
After Biden announced a series of new US sanctions against Russia at the end of last week, Moscow responded by saying it would expel ten US diplomats in retaliation.
However, it does not include US Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan, who was appointed under former President Donald Trump and has so far been detained by Biden.
Late last week, the Kremlin urged the Biden government to recall Sullivan to the US for personal talks on the heightened tensions between the two countries, something the ambassador initially refused.
Sullivan conceded Monday and said in a statement that he would return home in a week while promising to return.
“I believe it is important for me to speak directly to my new colleagues in the Biden Government in Washington on the current state of bilateral relations between the United States and Russia,” he said in a statement.
“I have not seen my family for more than a year, and that is another important reason for me to return home for a visit,” he continued. “I will return to Moscow in the coming weeks before any meeting between Presidents Biden and Putin.”
With Post threads