Free Republic

Kiev/Moscow - Elements of Russia's Black Sea fleet shifted locations on Wednesday in an possible move to avoid a confrontation with a growing NATO warship flotilla near Georgia. Russian naval vessels operating off of Georgia's coastline had moved from a station in the vicinity of the Georgian port Poti into "Abkhazian territorial waters," said Sergei Menialo, commander of Russia's Novorossisk naval base, according to an Interfax news agency report. The shift took a group of some six to eight Russian warships that had been patrolling near the Georgian port of Poti out of the path of US warships reportedly planning...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Naval forces of Iran's hardline Revolutionary Guards captured 15 British sailors and marines at gunpoint Friday in the Persian Gulf -- an audacious move coming during heightened tensions between the West and Iran. U.S. and British officials said a boarding party from the frigate HMS Cornwall was seized about 10:30 a.m. during a routine inspection of a merchant ship inside Iraqi territorial waters near the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway. Iran's Foreign Ministry insisted the Britons were operating in Iranian waters and would be held "for further investigation," Iranian state television said. A U.S. Navy official...