“When a ship of a non-regional power enters the Black Sea, when we know that it has a long-range high-precision weapon on board, we understand that it is not going on a tourist trip,” he said to the Russia 1 television channel.

“We understand that at any minute, at any moment a provocation is possible, as happened not long ago with a British ship. Of course, we should not allow such things,” he stressed.

For the Defense Minister, such actions constitute attempts to test the responsiveness and power of reaction of the country’s forces.

“It is an almost constant attempt to test ourselves, to check to what extent we are ready, in what condition we have the whole system built along the Black Sea coast, in general, in the south of our country,” he said.

He noted that Moscow will respond in the same way to the ongoing military exercises and maneuvers in the region with allies from different countries.

At the moment, the command flagship Mount Whitney and the guided-missile destroyer Porter, both from the United States, are in the Black Sea, whose actions are monitored by the forces and means of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

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