Russia’s top military officer called his U.S. counterpart to give advance warning of Russia’s drills in the Mediterranean Sea, officials said Thursday, in what was a rare contact amid high tensions between Moscow and Washington.
Russia’s General Staff chief, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, reached out to Gen.CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Nov. 27 to inform him about a planned Russian naval exercise involving missile launches in the eastern Mediterranean, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
“The information was delivered in order to prevent possible incidents in view of U.S. and NATO warships presence near the area of the Russian exercise,” the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry previously reported that the three-day Russian navy drills that wrapped up Tuesday involved two frigates performing practice launches of new hypersonic Zircon cruise missiles and submarine that fired Kalibr cruise missiles. As part of the drills, Russian forces also fired an Onyx missile from a ground launcher at a practice sea target.
The Pentagon said Brown and Gerasimov discussed a number of global and regional security issues, including the conflict in Ukraine, in their first call since Brown became chairman in October 2023. Gerasimov informed Brown of the live-fire exercise, but did not discuss specific weapons systems that would be used.
