Moscow. October 30. INTERFAX - The Russian military is monitoring the actions of the USS Porter, which entered the Black Sea on Saturday, the National Defense Control Center of the Russian Federation reported.
"The forces and means of the Black Sea Fleet have begun tracking the actions of the US Navy guided missile destroyer Porter, which entered the Black Sea on October 30, 2021," the center said in a statement.
Porter is equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles ("Tomahawk") with a range of 1.6 thousand km and the Aegis missile defense system ("Aegis"). This destroyer, as well as the USS Donald Cook of the same type, have already entered the Black Sea this year. The Russian military claimed to be tracking these ships.
The USS Porter, along with the destroyers Donald Cook, Roosevelt and Ross, is permanently stationed in Europe at the Spanish military base in Rota. Together with the Aegis ground-based missile defense bases in Poland and Romania, they 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.
According to the Montreux Convention, the time spent by ships of non-Black Sea countries in the Black Sea is limited to 21 days.
The former chief of the General Staff of the Russian Navy, retired Admiral Viktor Kravchenko, told Interfax earlier that the Black Sea Fleet can monitor NATO ships in several ways. "At sea - direct tracking by ships, from the shore - with the help of electronic reconnaissance, radar stations of coastal missile systems, from the air - by aviation," Kravchenko said.
This summer, the former commander of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation, retired Admiral Vladimir Komoyedov said that NATO ships began to enter the Black Sea more often. "From our side, these ships will definitely not be welcome. They have become more frequent in the Black Sea. Too much already from this increased presence. They comply with the Montreux Convention, but there has never been such activity of ships of non-Black Sea countries, even in Soviet times," Komoyedov said.
In June, Russian military and border guards opened warning fire on the course of the British destroyer Defender, which, as stated by the Russian Defense Ministry, violated the Russian border in the Black Sea near Cape Fiolent (Crimea).
On October 15, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation announced that the ship of the Pacific Fleet "Admiral Tributs" stopped the attempt of the US Navy destroyer Chafee to cross the state border of the Russian Federation in the Sea of Japan.
NATO announced its intention to strengthen its presence in the Black Sea region.
Russia has significantly strengthened its military grouping in the region in recent years. In particular, an army corps has been created in Crimea. In recent years, the Russian Black Sea Fleet has received six diesel-electric submarines, several frigates and small missile ships equipped with long-range Kalibr cruise missiles.
