London. March 23. INTERFAX-The USS Thomas Hudner left the Black Sea on Tuesday morning, the US 6th Operational Fleet said.
During the four-day stay, he took part in the Romanian Navy's naval exercise Sea Shield 2021. In addition to the American destroyer, the warships of Romania, Turkey and Bulgaria took part in them.
The US Navy cruiser Monterey ("Monterey"), equipped with at least 26 Tomahawk cruise missiles, continues to be in the Black Sea ("Tomahawk") with a range of 1.6 thousand km. It entered the Black Sea last Friday.
The National Defense Control Center of the Russian Federation reported that the Russian military is monitoring the American cruiser.
"The forces and means of the Black Sea Fleet have begun tracking the actions of the US Navy cruiser Monterey, which entered the Black Sea on March 19, 2021," the center reported last Friday.
The cruiser Monterey and the destroyer Thomas Hudner are part of the US Navy's carrier strike group, led by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Dwight Eisenhower. Currently, the remaining ships of the group and the aircraft carrier itself are located in the Mediterranean Sea near the coast of Turkey.
Earlier, it was assumed that the ships of the group, which entered the Mediterranean Sea on March 8, will proceed through the Suez Canal to the Middle East, from where at the end of January, after a stay of many months, the carrier strike group led by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Nimitz left. However, at the end of February, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that a decision on this has not yet been made.
According to US media, the aircraft carrier will remain in the Mediterranean for some time and interact with the naval forces of NATO member countries.
