Russia continued to intensify its military presence in the Black Sea over the weekend, while two other warships and 15 smaller ships moved on the waterway amid heightened tensions between Washington and Moscow.
The two Russian ships, capable of carrying tanks and armored vehicles, as well as troops for coastal attacks, traveled through the Bosphorus Strait in Turkey on Saturday, Reuters reported.
Several naval reinforcements – including landing craft from the Baltic Fleet – are expected to arrive in the Black Sea in the coming days to support thousands of soldiers and armored vehicles already in position near Russia’s eastern border with Ukraine.
The Biden administration washed away two U.S. warships in the Black Sea on Thursday after the Kremlin warned “stay away for your own good”.
The turnaround came shortly before the White House imposed sanctions on Russia for interfering in the 2020 presidential election and for the SolarWinds hack that infiltrated the computers of hundreds of government agencies and private sector companies.
A senior government official said the administration did not want the already tense situation in the region to “get out of control”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has responded to sanctions by expelling 10 US diplomats and threatened to pursue further retaliatory measures as part of the alleged confrontation between the two superpowers.
Putin also cut off access to the Kerch Strait last week to foreign warships until this fall.
The strait links Russia and Crimea, which Putin illegally annexed in 2014, leading to a round of sanctions by the United States and its European allies.
Since then, fighting between Ukrainian and Russian-backed separatist troops has killed thousands.