Russia halted participation on Monday in the year-old U.N.-brokered deal which lets Ukraine export grain through the Black Sea, just hours after a blast knocked out Russia's bridge to Crimea in what Moscow called a strike by Ukrainian sea drones.
Not particularly big, no. But neither is the Russian one, and it’s fairly modern.
The main issue is they can offer to escort civilian trading vessels. If Russian forces attempt to interdict and, even by accident, attack one of the Turkish warships, that is enough justification to trigger Article 5 if Turkey wished, and pull NATO wholesale into the conflict.
While we probably wouldn’t actually attack into Russia for fear of getting nuked, we could turn economic sanctions into an international blockade and eliminate every single Russian asset not hiding in Russia with warlike prejudice. Then just wait for the Ukrainians to beat them.
Not particularly big, no. But neither is the Russian one, and it’s fairly modern.
The main issue is they can offer to escort civilian trading vessels. If Russian forces attempt to interdict and, even by accident, attack one of the Turkish warships, that is enough justification to trigger Article 5 if Turkey wished, and pull NATO wholesale into the conflict.
While we probably wouldn’t actually attack into Russia for fear of getting nuked, we could turn economic sanctions into an international blockade and eliminate every single Russian asset not hiding in Russia with warlike prejudice. Then just wait for the Ukrainians to beat them.