Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said Russia now has a challenging number of naval ships in the Black Sea, meaning it can threaten NATO members.
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"These recent events have a direct bearing on the security of all of NATO. Russia now has a challenging number of naval ships in the Black Sea, meaning it can threaten NATO members Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey. And that may just be the beginning," he wrote in an op-ed article for The New York Times on December 5, 2018.
According to Poroshenko, Russia also has a significant presence in the Baltic Sea.
"Recently, Russia's fighters were intercepted, not for the first time, over the Baltic region and had not filed a flight plan. Who can guarantee that this was not a rehearsal of patrols over the notorious Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline being built by Russia through the Baltic Sea to challenge Europe?" he said.
