Having sent not one but two aircraft carriers into the Mediterranean in what, as we reported yesterday, was meant to be a "clear message to Russia", the US decided to further antagonize Russia when on Monday it sent the US destroyer Porter in the Black Sea "for a series of drills with allies and forces of partner nations in what the United States called a routine deployment", the US Navy announced.  To be sure, the US Navy was quite clear about its intentions with these deployments: "It provides some needed presence in the Med to check…the Russians," the official said. "The unpredictability of what we did with Truman kind of makes them think twice."

Well, as we said yesterday, "we expect Russia to respond promptly", and sure enough it did just that when earlier today the Russian Foreign ministry, cited by Reuters, said Moscow would respond to a U.S. naval ship's entry into the Black Sea with unspecified measures, saying it and other deployments were designed to ratchet up tensions ahead of a NATO summit, the RIA news agency reported.