Russia has reportedly carried out live-fire drills in the Black Sea in a warning to Ukraine, Kremlin said on Friday. According to the Defence Ministry, the Russian warships and planes fired rockets at “floating targets”.
It added that the Russian fleet had also rehearsed closing off areas temporarily ruled off limits to shipping and seizing vessels, reported Reuters.
“In accordance with the combat training plan of the Black Sea Fleet forces, the crew of the Ivanovets missile boat carried out live firing of anti-ship cruise missiles at a target vessel…” the Defence Ministry said in a statement. “Telemetry data and video monitoring from unmanned aerial vehicles confirmed the success of the exercise, and the target vessel was destroyed as a result of the rocket strike,” it added.
This comes as Kremlin said it would consider ships travelling to Ukraine’s Black Sea ports through the waterway as potential military targets. Kyiv too issued a counter statement saying all ships calling at Russian-controlled ports in the Black Sea “may be considered by Ukraine as carrying military cargo with all the relevant risks”.
Kremlin said the new rule would come into existence from Thursday. Though it did not say what actions will be taken towards the ships. Russia also declared southeastern and northwestern parts of the Black Sea’s international waters to be temporarily unsafe for navigation.
Moscow had recently quit the Black Sea grain export deal that let Ukraine ship its grains through Black Sea ports. Following this, Kyiv declared that it would establish a temporary shipping route via Romania, one of the neighbouring Black Sea countries.
Ukraine is deploying U.S.-supplied cluster munitions as part of Kyiv’s battle against Russia, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said on Thursday.”We have gotten some initial feedback from the Ukrainians, and they’re using them quite effectively,” Kirby said at a news briefing.
He added that cluster munitions are having an impact on Russian defensive formations and manoeuvring. Cluster munitions, which are banned in more than 100 countries, typically release large numbers of smaller bomblets that can kill indiscriminately over a wide area. They are banned by over 100 countries due to the risks involved.
