A provocative build-up of Nato warships in the Black Sea or a routine naval presence engaged in nothing out of the ordinary?

On the face of it, American and other Nato warships there outnumber the Russian vessels but, according to the alliance’s military headquarters at Mons in Belgium and the American European Command HQ, the six ships (and one extra on the way) are all involved in preplanned training and exercising or in delivering humanitarian aid to the Georgians.

To the Russians, however, who have dispatched one guided missile cruiser, the Moskva, and two missile boats to the port of Sukhumi in the breakaway Georgian enclave of Abkhazia, the Western naval presence looks threatening. To counterbalance the perceived build-up the Russians are said to be massing three destroyers, two frigates, five corvettes and scores of missile boats at the Sevastopol naval base leased from Ukraine.

Nato was adamant that Moscow had had plenty of notice. Notification was made in June of the proposed visit of five alliance ships under the terms of the 1936 Montreux Convention, which controls transit through the Turkish straits and restricts the presence of visiting warships in the Black Sea to 21 days.

The Nato-flagged ships are from the Standing Nato Maritime Group One, which normally operates in the Mediterranean. One of the five, the Canadian frigate HMCS Ville de Quebec, left early to carry out a food-aid programme off Somalia. The other four, headed by USS Taylor, an American destroyer, are carrying out joint manoeuvres with the Romanian and Bulgarian navies. Yesterday they were at the Romanian port of Constanta. The Nato ships arrived in the Black Sea on August 21 and will have to leave by September 10.

In addition, the US has sent two ships, USS McFaul, a destroyer, and the Coast Guard cutter Dallas, to deliver humanitarian aid to Georgia through the port of Batumi. USS Mount Whitney, a command ship and flagship of the US 6th Fleet, is on her way to the Black Sea.

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