In mid-April, the US cancelled plans to send the missile destroyers USS Roosevelt and USS Donald Cook to the Black Sea reportedly due to concerns that the deployment might “provoke” Moscow.
The American coastal patrol cutter Hamilton has begun its transit into the Black Sea to work with “NATO allies and partners in the region”, the US Sixth Fleet tweeted on Tuesday.
The announcement comes after Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters last week “the US and other NATO member states that seek to increase their presence on Russia's borders, continue provocative activities in the east and in the Black Sea waters”.
The statement was preceded by US strategic drone Global Hawk conducting a reconnaissance mission near the borders of Crimea ahead of Russian military drills on the peninsula.
US Drops Plans to Send Missile Destroyers to Black Sea
Earlier in April, the US suddenly cancelled the deployment of a pair of Tomahawk-armed Arleigh Burke-class missiles destroyers, the USS Roosevelt and USS Donald Cook, to the Black Sea, several days after announcing plans to sail them into the area.
The deployment was halted after Russia's Black Sea Fleet kicked off large-scale drills involving an array of advanced Kalibr cruise missile-armed warships. The US news outlet Politico, in turn, cited unnamed sources as saying that Washington scrapped the plans to send the missile destroyers to the Black Sea due…
