RUSSIA is getting bolder. In the past day it’s sent a fleet of
warships through the English Channel and anchored it off the French coast —
without notice.
The four warships passed through the crowded, narrow waterway last night
before unexpectedly dropping anchor off the French coast in the Bay of the
Siene.
France recently suspended the
delivery of a newly built helicopter carrying assault ship to its buyer,
Russia, in protest of its activity in Crimea and Ukraine. It is a move that has
caused a serious rise in tensions between the two nations.
NATO has publicly been nonchalant about the unannounced move — which Russia
attributes to “unexpectedly bad weather” — but it is an act that hearkens back
to an era of Cold War tensions.
The four ships are led by the destroyer Severomorsk and includes an
amphibious assault ship, a tanker and a tug.
“We see this as a routine movement on the part of the Russian navy. And
they’re well within their rights to do so,” a spokesman for NATO’s military
command said. “It’s not as if they are doing some war-fighting manoeuvres in
the English Channel or something that could be considered hostile.”
The Royal Navy sent a patrol vessel, the HMS Tyne, to monitor the Russians
as they passed through the narrow waters. Russian forces sometimes use the
route as the most direct path to the Mediterranean Sea.
A British Ministry of Defence spokesman said: “We are aware that four
Russian naval ships have passed through the Dover Strait from the North Sea
into the English Channel, which all ships have the right to do under
international law.”
But Russian moves in the skies above Europe and off the United States,
combined with a possible submarine incursion in Sweden, has caused the West to
be on edge for any such unexpected, unannounced activity.
At the time the Russian fleet sailed through the Channel, one of its
submarines test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile from the Barents
Sea. The warheads were directed at test targets in Russia’s far east
Image : Source
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