MOSCOW (AP) \u2014 Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday emphasized the need to strengthen the country\u2019s air defenses amid NATO\u2019s military activities near Russia\u2019s borders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking during a meeting with military officials and arms makers in the southern Russian city of Sochi, Putin specificially noted the deployment of NATO\u2019s U.S.-led missile defense components in Eastern Europe and increasingly frequent missions by NATO ships near Russian waters in the Baltic and Black Seas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEven now, a U.S. warship has entered the Black Sea, and we can see it in binoculars or crosshairs of our defense systems,\u201d he said in a reference to the USS Mount Whitney, the flagship of the U.S. 6th Fleet, deployed to the Black Sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Russia has bristled at the deployment of U.S. and other NATO ships near its waters as tensions between Moscow and the West have sunk to post-Cold War lows after Russia\u2019s 2014 annexation of Ukraine\u2019s Crimean Peninsula, its support for a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine and other irritants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last month, Russia suspended its mission at NATO and ordered the closure of the alliance\u2019s office in Moscow after NATO had withdrawn the accreditation of eight Russian officials to its Brussels headquarters, saying it believed they had been secretly working for Russian intelligence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moscow has repeatedly voiced concerns over the deployment of NATO forces near Russian borders, describing it as a threat to its security. Russia and the alliance also have continuously accused each other of dangerous and provocative maneuvers at sea and in the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In June, Russia said one of its warships fired warning shots and a warplane dropped bombs in the path of British destroyer Defender to drive it away from Black Sea waters near the Crimean city of Sevastopol. Britain denied that account, insisted its ship wasn\u2019t fired upon and said it was sailing in Ukrainian waters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like most of the world, Britain recognizes Crimea as part of Ukraine despite the peninsula\u2019s 2014 annexation by Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the aftermath of the incident, Moscow warned that it is prepared to target intruding warships if they fail to heed warnings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe must further improve our air and space defense system as leading powers have been developing prospective high-speed strike weapons,\u201d Putin said. \u201cIt\u2019s also warranted by the military-political situation, including increasingly intensive flights by NATO aircraft near Russia and the appearance of the alliance\u2019s warships armed with guided missiles in the Baltic and Black Seas.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MOSCOW (AP) \u2014 Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monda […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":961,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=960"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":962,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960\/revisions\/962"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}