US military drone flights in the Black Sea increase “the risk of direct confrontation” between Russia and NATO, the Russian Defense Ministry denounced on Friday, promising to prepare a response, in the midst of the Ukrainian conflict.
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“These flights increase the likelihood of incidents in the airspace with aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces, which increases the risk of a direct confrontation between the (Atlantic) Alliance and the Russian Federation,” the ministry said. in a press release.
“NATO countries would be responsible,” he warned.
According to the Russian ministry, these American drones are used “for reconnaissance and target designation for precision weapons supplied to the Ukrainian armed forces” by the West.
In recent weeks, Moscow has accused the West of becoming parties to the conflict in Ukraine by authorizing kyiv to conditionally strike, with Western weapons, military sites on Russian territory used to attack Ukrainian territory.
Americans and Europeans have long been reluctant to do so, for fear of provoking an escalation.
Russia already threatened the United States with retaliation on June 24, accusing it of “killing Russian children,” the day after a Ukrainian strike in Crimea, a peninsula bordered by the Black Sea and annexed by Moscow in 2014.
Because according to the Kremlin, long-range ATACMS missile strikes cannot be carried out by Ukraine alone, as these require specialists, technologies and intelligence collected by the Americans.
Referring to retaliation, Russian President Vladimir Putin had already threatened in early June to deliver equivalent weapons to enemies of the West so that they could strike their interests in other regions of the world.
The Black Sea has been a heavily contested area between Ukrainians and Russians since the start of the conflict in 2022. Although the Russian fleet has numerical superiority there, it has lost numerous ships, targeted by multiple attacks from naval explosive drones launched by Kiev successfully.
With these strikes, the Ukrainian army repelled Russian warships and established a sea corridor in the area to export its grain.
Vladimir Putin launched his troops to attack Ukraine in February 2022. He justified this offensive in particular by accusing NATO of waging a proxy war against Russia using Kyiv.
