Russia threatens US ships in Black Sea

Times:

A new Cold War between Russia and the West grew steadily closer yesterday after the Kremlin gave a warning about “direct confrontation” between American and Russian warships in the Black Sea.

Dmitri Peskov, a spokesman for Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister, declared that Russia was taking “measures of precaution” against American and Nato naval ships. “Let’s hope we do not see any direct confrontation in that,” he said.

Any attempt by countries in the West to isolate Russia would “definitely harm the economic interests of those states”, he said.

A day after the Kremlin said that it was ready to fight a new Cold War, both sides gave the impression that they were preparing for a protracted stand-off. Foreign ministers of the G7 leading industrialised nations condemned Russia’s excessive use of force and the decision to recognise the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, while the US and Russia shelved a key nuclear agreement that would have given the Americans access to Russian nuclear technologies and Russia help from the US in establishing an international nuclear fuel storage facility for spent fuel.

David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, also flew to Ukraine to assemble the “widest possible coalition against Russian aggression”, while Georgia downgraded its diplomatic relations with Russia, recalling all but two of its diplomats from Moscow in protest at the continuing occupation of its country.

Russia criticised the US for using naval ships to deliver aid to Georgia. The US Coast Guard cutter Dallas delivered supplies to the Georgian port of Batumi yesterday, three days after the guided-missile destroyer USS McFaul docked in the port. The US sailors were greeted with chants of “USA! USA!”

By choosing Batumi, the US opted for a less confrontational move than docking at Poti, another Georgian port where Russian troops are dug in. The US may have also suspected that the Russians had mined the harbour at Poti, possibly one of the precautionary measures referred to by Mr Putin’s spokesman.

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The Russians aggressive response to the US deliver of humanitarian aid suggest the wisdom of doing it with war ships that can defend themselves. Those ships are capable of doing to the Russian fleet what it did to the Georgian fleet. Putin needs to back off before he escalates a humanitarian mission into a confrontation he cannot win.