NATO is sending additional military assets to the Black Sea amid a dramatic escalation in attacks targeting commercial merchant vessels passing through the vital waterway.
Military analysts widely identify Russia as being behind the attacks. The Kremlin is suspected of launching a hybrid operation intended to squeeze Ukraine economically while testing NATO’s defensive resolve along its eastern flank.
“NATO will be sending additional assets to the region, including support for surveillance, reconnaissance, and forensics,” NATO spokesperson Allison Hart said this week. “We will continue to stand united and ensure that we are ready and able to address any threat and to keep our one billion people safe.”
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About 11 seafarers were confirmed dead while at least seven others went missing last week after their ships were struck and sunk off the coasts of Romania and Bulgaria, officials said.
European Union foreign minister Kaja Kallas accused Russia of intensifying its attacks on Ukraine’s commercial export routes.
“It’s aggression in the Black Sea that makes it harder to put food on people’s plates across the world,” Ms. Kallas said this week. “A Black Sea freedom of navigation arrangement would protect lives and vital supplies. Ukraine has proposed it. Russia has rejected it.”
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