The issue of the fleet is expected to be raised again at NATO’s Warsaw Summit in July as the alliance is considering what more it can do to deter what it sees as growing Russian aggression.
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Bulgaria also has reasons to be skeptical of the merits of a NATO Black Sea force, added Michael Kofman, a military analyst at CNA Corporation and a fellow at the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute.
The USS Porter, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, entered the Black Sea last month, sparking criticism from Moscow as being yet another example of the US military encroaching on Russia’s borders.
In May, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is paying insufficient attention to the Black Sea region. “We’re going to deter”.
“We’re going to be there”, Mabus said of the Black Sea.
In early June, Russia’s envoy to NATO, Aleksandr Grushko, made a point that the alliance must be well aware that the Black Sea would never be a “NATO lake”.
“If a decision is made to create a permanent force, of course, it would be destabilizing, because this is not a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation sea”, Russian news agencies quoted senior Foreign Ministry official Andrey Kelin as saying.
Countries without a Black Sea maritime border are banned from keeping their warships in the area for over 21 days under the Montreux Convention. Russia, which annexed Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014, has its own Black Sea Fleet based at Sevastopol. “I do not need a war in the Black Sea”, Borisov said.
Shevchenko said the new Liberal government remains a steadfast ally and supporter of his country, and there’s an opportunity for Canada to play a larger role in helping find a solution to the two-year-old Russian annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and Moscow’s ongoing backing of separatist rebels in his country’s east.
Bulgaria has refused to take part in a proposed joint fleet from North Atlantic Treaty Organisation countries in the Black Sea region whose goal would be to counter Russian presence there.
Bulgaria appeared to buckle to Russian pressure on Thursday.
The U.S.’s deployment of two aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean Sea also strained ties with Russian Federation as Moscow also has a military presence in the Eastern Mediterranean.
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“We’ve been in the Mediterranean continuously for 70 years now, since World War II”, he said.
