NATO said Wednesday it was stepping up surveillance and reconnaissance in the Black Sea region, including with maritime patrol aircraft and drones.

The announcement came after a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council, which was launched, to address the serious security situation in the Black Sea region following Russia’s unilateral termination of the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg convened the meeting following a request for crisis consultation from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“Allies and Ukraine strongly condemned Russia’s decision to withdraw from the Black Sea grain deal and its deliberate attempts to stop Ukraine’s agricultural exports on which hundreds of millions of people worldwide depend. NATO and allies are stepping up surveillance and reconnaissance in the Black Sea region, including with maritime patrol aircraft and drones,” read the NATO statement.

The NATO statement also noted that Russia’s new warning area in the Black Sea, within Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone, has created new risks for miscalculation and escalation, as well as serious impediments to freedom of navigation.

Since last year, in response to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, NATO has significantly increased its presence in the region, including with two new multinational battlegroups in Bulgaria and Romania.

NATO also said allies and Ukraine condemned Russia’s recent missile attacks on Odesa, Mykolaiv, and other port cities, including Moscow’s drone attack on the Ukrainian grain storage facility in the Danube port city of Reni, very close to the Romanian border.

“We remain ready to defend every inch of Allied territory from any aggression,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said.

Allies also made clear that they would continue to provide Ukraine with major military, economic, and humanitarian assistance.

Britain warned on Tuesday that it has information indicating Russia’s military may start to target civilian shipping in the Black Sea, as Shipping Telegraph reported yesterday.

“Russia may expand their targeting of Ukrainian ports including attacks against civilian shipping in the Black Sea,” Ambassador Barbara Woodward, UK´s permanent representative to the UN, said on Tuesday.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak shared the information with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a phone call on Tuesday, Woodward also added.

She also warned that Russia has laid additional sea mines near Ukrainian ports.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a phone call with UK´s prime minister stressed the importance of strengthening the air defence of Ukraine to protect its historical heritage and continue the Black Sea Grain Initiative.