US And NATO Boosting Their Activities Near The Russian Border

US Navy destroyer USS Porter with other ships during exercise Sea Breeze in the Black Sea, July 25, 2020. US Navy/Courtesy of Ukrainian Navy

Business Insider: The US and NATO are boosting their presence in a hotspot for military activity near Russia

* In late July, the US and other partners wrapped up the 20th iteration of Sea Breeze, a multinational military exercise in the Black Sea.
* The exercise comes amid years of rising tensions between Russia and its neighbors — and the Black Sea has been a growing hotspot for those increasingly contentious relations.
* Ben Hodges, US Army Europe commander from 2015 to 2017, cautioned that the coming months — with an ongoing drought in Crimea, US and Ukrainian elections, and a major military exercise in southwestern Russia — could see more Russian action.

The long-awaited announcement about the redeployment of thousands of US troops currently in Germany finally came at the end of July.

US officials, including Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Gen. Tod Wolters, who heads US European Command, outlined the moves and the strategic reasoning behind them. President Donald Trump immediately undercut their remarks, but their references to the Black Sea reflect how the region is a growing point of tension with Russia.

"We're moving forces out of Central Europe, Germany, where they had been since the Cold War," Esper said. "We're following, in many ways, the boundary east [to] where our newest allies are, so into the Black Sea region" as well as Poland and the Baltics.

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Update: NATO Needs to Focus on the Black Sea (Defense One)

WNU Editor: The Russian military is responding .... Russia Scrambles Su-27 to Intercept US Navy Reconnaissance Jet Over Black Sea (Sputnik). More here .... Russian fighter jet intercepts U.S. reconnaissance planes over Black Sea: reports (Reuters).