,Q EUIHI NAVY PRACTISES STRIKING BLACK SEA TARGETS

Russia’s navy practised firing at targets in the Black Sea off the coast of annexed Crimea using its Bastion coastal missile defence system, Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Thursday as Ukraine held joint military drills with the United States.

The exercises in Ukraine involving US and other Nato troops are set to run until October 1. They follow huge war games staged by neighbouring Russia and Belarus earlier this month that alarmed the West.

Kyiv’s relations with Moscow plummeted in 2014 after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine and backed prorussian separatists in Ukraine’s Donbass region.