Ukraine partially repels Russian Black Sea fleet

UKRAINE, RUSSIA, US: The Ukrainian Army said Monday that it had pushed the Russian fleet back more than a hundred kilometres from Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, where Moscow’s ships have been carrying out a naval blockade for weeks.

“As a result of our active actions aimed at defeating enemy Naval Forces, the group of ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet was pushed back from the Ukrainian shores at a distance of more than a hundred kilometres,” Ukraine’s Defence Ministry said on Telegram. Meanwhile,the United States on Monday accused Russia of trying to “intimidate” American correspondents in Moscow, who were summoned by the Russian Foreign Ministry and threatened with reprisals because of US sanctions.

“The Russian Ministry of Foreign affairs summoned your colleagues to quote ‘explain to them the consequences of their government’s hostile line in the media sphere,’” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters in Washington.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova threatened at the end of May to expel Western media if YouTube continued to block the department’s weekly briefings.

On Friday, she again accused Washington of “targeting for repression Russian media” inside the United States. “They are doing everything to make it impossible for Russia media to work,” she said, adding that “if they don’t normalise the work of Russian media on US territory, there will be forceful measures as a consequence.”

– THE STRAITS TIMES