London. July 16. INTERFAX-The USS Ross missile destroyer left the Black Sea on Friday after a 20-day stay, the US 6th Operational Fleet said.
Istanbul observers published photos of the passage of the destroyer through the Bosphorus Strait into the Mediterranean Sea.
The destroyer, capable of carrying up to 56 Tomahawk cruise missiles with a range of 1.6 thousand km, took part in the US-Ukrainian naval exercises Sea Breeze, as well as the exercises Breeze conducted under the leadership of Bulgaria.
His stay in the region was monitored by the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
According to the US 6th Operational Fleet, the US Navy's high-speed amphibious transport ship USNS Yuma also left the Black Sea on Friday. According to reports, during his nine-day stay in the region, he delivered cargo to the Ukrainian port of Odessa and the Georgian port of Batumi.
The USS Ross, along with the similar destroyers USS Roosevelt and USS Donald Cook and USS Arleigh Burke, permanently stationed in Europe at the Spanish military base in Rota, together with the Aegis missile defense ground bases in Poland and Romania, are integral parts of the program for building a European phased adaptive missile defense system.
After the beginning of the crisis in eastern Ukraine, ships of the US Navy and other NATO countries regularly enter the Black Sea.
