The Russian government has summoned the U.S. military attaché on Saturday after reporting the detection of a U.S. submarine in Russian territorial waters, the official Russian news agency Sputnik reports.
The Virginia-class submarine was detected at around 10:40 a.m. Moscow time near the island of Urup in the Kuril Islands archipelago.
The area was the site of a planned exercise by Russian Pacific Fleet forces, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. It was there that the crew of the frigate ‘Marshal Shaposhnikov’ discovered the submarine, which it ordered to surface immediately.
The crew of the U.S. submarine ignored the demand from the Russian side and ended up “leaving the territorial waters of the Russian Federation at maximum speed”.
This incident, on which the United States has not yet commented, takes place in the middle of a moment of maximum tension between Russia and NATO due to the build-up of Russian forces on the border with Ukraine, a possible prelude to an invasion, according to the Atlantic Alliance.
The Kremlin categorically denies any intention of staging an invasion of Ukraine.
