Russia chased off US warship in its Pacific waters

MOSCOW: A Russian warship caught a US Navy destroyer operating in Russia’s Pacific waters on Tuesday and chased it off, the defence ministry in Moscow said.

The USS John S. McCain, a guided-missile destroyer, violated Russia’s territorial waters by moving two kilometres beyond the maritime border at 0317 GMT into Peter the Great Gulf, the ministry said in a statement.

The US ship had been operating for several days in the Sea of Japan and was being tracked by Russia, the ministry said. The Admiral Vinogradov, an anti-submarine destroyer in Russia’s Pacific Fleet, sent a warning to the US ship and threatened to "use a ramming manouevre to drive the intruder out of its territorial waters".

The US ship immediately returned to neutral waters, the statement said, and was being monitored. The US Pacific Fleet said in a statement that the USS John S. McCain had "asserted navigational rights" in the area "by challenging Russia’s excessive maritime claims".