Russian Official: Presence of NATO Ships the Wrong Signal to Saakashvili

Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, said the presence of NATO battleships in the Black Sea would not be perceived by “the Saakashvili regime as a call for peace.”

“Delivery of humanitarian aid is said to be the purpose of the NATO warships in the Black Sea… It is not a common practice to deliver humanitarian aid using battleships,” Interfax news agency quoted Peskov as saying. “Such actions would definitely not be perceived by the Saakashvili regime as a call for peace. On the contrary, it would further incite President Saakashvili to undertake unwise actions.”

The general staff of the Russian armed forces has claimed that there are ten NATO warships in the Black Sea.

NATO’s allied maritime headquarters said last week that three NATO military ships – the Spanish Almirante Don Juan Bordon; the German F214-Lübeck and the Polish ORP General K Pulaski – were “conducting a pre-planned routine visit to the Black Sea.”

A U.S. Navy ship, a guided missile destroyer, USS McFaul, has already delivered humanitarian aid to Batumi and now remains “on a routine operation in the Black Sea,” according to the U.S. Navy.

A U.S. Coast Guard cutter, Dallas (WHEC 716), docked in Batumi on August 27 with humanitarian aid on-board and USS Mount Whitney is scheduled to depart for Georgia at the end of the month with more humanitarian supplies, according to the U.S. European Command.

Meanwhile, a group of Russian warships, including the missile cruiser Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, anchored off the coast of Sokhumi, breakaway Abkhazia’s capital, on August 27.

Sergey Bagapsh, leader of breakaway Abkhazia, who welcomed Russian warship crews in Sokhumi and went on board the Moskva, said the presence of the Russian fleet was a security guarantee. He also said that he would like the Russian fleet to remain in Abkhaz waters permanently.

Georgian officials, welcoming the U.S. vessels in Batumi in recent days, have expressed similar sentiments vis-a-vis Georgian security.

Georgian Defense Minister Davit Kezerashvili told journalists in Batumi on August 24, after welcoming USS McFaul, that the presence of the U.S. Navy ship in Georgia meant that “no one in the world would allow Putin’s Russia” to meddle in Georgia.

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