A Russian fighter jet repeatedly buzzed a US Navy guided missile destroyer while it sailed in international waters in the Black Sea.  The Russian SU-24 ignored several warnings from the USS Donald Cook while a second Russian fighter circled overhead.

Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren called the Russian fly-bys “provocative and unprofessional”.

It comes as pro-Russian separatists tighten their grip on several government and police facilities in Ukraine’s Russian-speaking east – and after Kiev’s deadline for the militants to disarm and walk away from the buildings they’ve occupied.  The threatened military crackdown did not come.  Instead, interim President Oleksander Turchinov sacked the state security chief in charge of the operation.

The west accuses Moscow of directing the pro-Russian occupations in Eastern Ukraine, if not directly manning them.  But Russia has so far brushed off economic sanctions imposed by the US and European Union in the wake of its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.  Washington now says it’s ready to impose sanctions on more Russian individuals and entities, this time in the financial services, energy, metals, mining, engineering and defense sectors.