Black Sea Peninsula News

The Russian navy can detect any enemy and launch an "unpreventable strike" if needed, President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday, weeks after a UK warship angered Moscow by passing the Crimea peninsula."We are capable of detecting any underwater, above-water, airborne enemy and, if required, carry out an unpreventable strike against it," Putin said speaking at a navy day parade in St Petersburg.Putin's words follow an incident in the Black Sea in June when Russia said it had fired…

A senior Russian security official said on Thursday that Moscow had used its navy and air force to expel a British warship, HMS Dragon, from what he described as Russian territorial waters near Russian-annexed Crimea last October.Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, drawing sanctions and condemnation from the West. Kyiv wants the territory back.Vladimir Kulishov, first deputy head of the FSB security service, said Russia had told the vessel not to enter its waters, but that it had crossed what he said was the border on Oct.

Russia plans to invest $500 million in the Syrian port of Tartus and build a grain hub there to boost its presence on Middle East markets, Interfax news agency cited Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov as saying on Tuesday.Russia, the world's largest wheat exporter, has stepped up grain supplies to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in recent years since Moscow's 2015 military intervention on his behalf in Syria's civil war.Construction of the necessary infrastructure at the port…

At least two countries have struck cargo vessels off their registries in recent weeks after the ships were involved in transporting grains from Crimea to Syria, maritime officials told Reuters.Crimea has been under Western sanctions since it was annexed from Ukraine by Russia in 2014 and has been frozen out of many export markets. That leaves Syria, which has also been targeted by sanctions, as an ideal trading partner for Crimea, given that the latter is open to receiving goods…

Seven NATO countries completed naval exercises in the Black Sea on Thursday, officials said, in a signal of the alliance's resolve to support east European members who have been unnerved by Russia's behavior in the Ukraine crisis. Though scheduled before the crisis erupted, the war games took on added significance because of Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Black Sea peninsula of Crimea in March, and the subsequent outbreak of a pro-Russian separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine. Led by the Bulgarian navy, the 10-day drills aimed to improve tactical coordination of allied units "in a multi-threat environment," NATO has said. Vessels took part from Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Britain and the United States.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday dismissed talk of a new Cold War over the crisis in Ukraine and denied trying to rebuild the Soviet Union after reclaiming Crimea. In an interview with Reuters and other international news agencies in a grandiose palace outside St Petersburg, Putin blamed the violence and political instability in Ukraine on the West and warned that sanctions would rebound on the United States and the European Union. The crisis has plunged East-West relations to their lowest level since the Cold War ended in 1991. But making a new pledge to work with whoever is elected president in Ukraine on Sunday, Putin called for dialogue with the West and hoped the European Union and the United States were ready for compromise.

Rebels pressed ahead with a referendum on self-rule in east Ukraine on Sunday and fighting flared anew in a conflict that has raised fears of civil war and pitched Russia and the West into their worst crisis since the Cold War. Clashes broke out around a television tower on the outskirts of the rebel stronghold of Slaviansk shortly before voters made their way to polling stations through streets blocked by barricades of felled trees, tyres and rusty machinery. "I wanted to come as early as I could," said Zhenya Denyesh, a 20-year-old student voting at a three-storey concrete university building. In nearby Mariupol, scene of fierce fighting last week, officials said there were only eight polling centres for half a million people.

Ukrainian forces launched a "special operation" on Tuesday against separatist militia in the Russian-speaking East, authorities said, although aside from a landing by airborne troops the action was limited. Soldiers disembarked from two helicopters at an airfield at Kramatorsk, where reporters earlier heard gunfire that seemed to prevent an air force plane from landing. The troops withdrew into barracks after local civilians manning a barricade gave them a hostile reception when they tried to leave the compound. In Kiev, acting President Oleksander Turchinov declared a much-needed victory over pro-Russian rebels by saying the air base had been "liberated." But there was no sign of militants.

Reuters - Ukraine said on Sunday its navy's fleet of 10 warships in the Crimean port of Sevastopol had not left the port and remained loyal to the government in Kiev. Earlier, Ukraine said it had withdrawn coastguard vessels from Sevastopol and another Crimean port and stationed them elsewhere. Ukraine withdrew its coast guard vessels from two ports in Crimea and moved them to other Black Sea bases on Sunday, a sign that Russian forces were completing their seizure of the isolated Black Sea peninsula. In a statement, the border guards said vessels from the Crimean ports of Kerch and Sevastopol had been moved to Odessa and Mariupol. The situation on Ukraine's frontiers was stable apart from in Crimea, the statement said.

Moscow stocks fall 10 pct, rouble down 2.5 pct over war jitters. Ukraine border guards say build-up of Russian armoured vehicles near Crimea. EU ministers meet but no immediate sanctions expected. Russia took a financial hit over its military intervention in neighbouring Ukraine, with its markets and currency plunging on Monday as President Vladimir Putin's forces tightened their grip on the Russian-speaking Crimea region. The Moscow stock market fell by 10 percent and the central bank spent $10 billion of its reserves to prop up the rouble as investors took fright at escalating tensions with the West over the former Soviet republic.