Navy destroyer USS Truxtun crosses Dardanelles en route to Black Sea (VIDEO) ― RT News
The Truxton is part of the Arleigh Burke class of destroyer and is among the largest destroyers ever built for the US navy. It is designed as a multi-role warship with anti-aircraft, anti-submarine and anti-surface capabilities.
The Truxton is part of the George HW Bush Carrier Strike Group, which recently entered the Mediterranean and is training with regional navies.
The USS Truxton will join the USS Taylor as the only two US vessels in the Black Sea. The Taylor, a guided missile frigate, is moored in Samsun, Turkey after running aground in February.
US warship in Black Sea as Ukraine’s Crimea readies for referendum ― RT News
USS Truxton has taken up the baton of American military presence in the region from frigate USS Taylor, which ran aground in the Turkish port of Samsun in the Black Sea last month, with a broken propeller hub and blades. On Friday, a tugboat began to tow the damaged warship to Greece’s island of Crete, where it will be repaired at the US Navy base in Souda Bay.
USS Truxton will reportedly stay in the Black Sea till mid-March. The Montreux Convention allows a warship of any non-Black Sea country to stay in the region for 21 day only.
During the military conflict between Russia and Georgia in August 2008, an American ship was also present in the Black Sea with reconnaissance and an officially proclaimed humanitarian mission. In September 2008, the US costal guard ship, Dallas, docked at Sevastopol harbor with a secret mission and had to leave in haste because of mass local protest.
Given the present conditions, an American battleship is highly unlikely to get anywhere near the Crimea shores, let alone Sevastopol, without a risk of repeating a hasty exit from the past.
On February 12, 1988, a Ticonderoga-class cruiser, the USS Yorktown, and a Spruance-class destroyer, the USS Caron, had to flee from Soviet territorial waters off the Crimean Peninsula. After the two American warships ignored the Soviet Navy’s demands to leave country’s territorial waters immediately, the Soviet frigate, Bezzavetny, simply rammed both American ships, forcing them to comply with international maritime rules.
米海軍ミサイル駆逐艦、トルコのボスポラス海峡通過 | Reuters
