US Sends Warship to Black Sea

Local Editor

The US is sending a guided missile destroyer warship to the Black Sea amid tensions between Ukraine and Russia, a Pentagon official said on Monday.

"We have decided to send a ship into the Black Sea," said Pentagon spokesman colonel Steven Warren, without disclosing the name or type of the vessel citing "operational security."

The USS Donald Cook, a guided missile destroyer, will travel to the Black Sea "in the next week or so," according to the senior defense official.

Warren noted that the aim of deploying the vessel to the Black Sea was only to reassure regional partners.

The purpose is primarily to reassure our allies and partners in the region that we're committed to the region," he stated.

"We're still planning the details of our operations in the Black Sea, but we expect port calls and exercises with other Black Sea nations," he said.
He also said that none of the preplanned exercises would be taken place in Ukrainian ports.

The ship, recently upgraded, is now capable of firing SM-3 missiles, enabling it to function as part of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System.

In order to serve as part of the proposed NATO missile shield, the warship was deployed at the Spanish naval base in Rota.

NATO insists the missile shield is a purely defensive system designed to counter potential missile threats from nations such as Iran- as it says.
The United States has already sent another destroyer, USS Truxtun, to the Black Sea.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team