As part of the Washington aid package, two Island patrol vessels have been delivered to Odessa by cargo ship. Together with two other ships of this type received by Ukraine in 2019, these ships will strengthen Ukraine’s security in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, the Ministry of Defense said in a statement. The Black Sea has been a particularly sensitive region for Russia since 2014, when it occupied and annexed the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine.
Western countries have raised concerns this week about Russia’s military activity on Ukraine’s border, saying Washington has “real concerns” about a new concentration of troops at the border.
Moscow rejects Western accusations that Russia could prepare for a new invasion of Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that the Kremlin was worried that Ukraine could make an offensive in the east. Kiev denies these allegations. The US plans to send military equipment and advisers to Ukraine will only increase tensions, Peskov said.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014, the United States has provided $ 2.5 billion in aid to Ukrainian forces. Last week, Putin accused the West of exacerbating the conflict in Ukraine by conducting maneuvers in the Black Sea.
In February 2014, Russia occupied the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula. Since April 2014, Moscow-backed and armed militants, saboteurs and soldiers of Russia’s regular units have occupied large areas in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions of eastern Ukraine. In the conflict in eastern Ukraine, 13,000 people have been killed and almost three million have fled.
Punishing Russia for the annexation of Crimea and the destabilization of eastern Ukraine, the EU, the US and other Western countries have imposed sanctions on many of Russia’s top officials, the Kremlin’s immediate circle, and Russia’s financial, defense, energy and other sectors.
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