The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is purposefully destabilizing the situation along Russia's border with the Sea Breeze 2021 military exercises, the Russian foreign ministry said Thursday. 

With the involvement of more than 30 countries and 5,000 military personnel, these exercises cannot be called "friendly" or considered regular drills but are clearly politically driven, the ministry's spokesperson Maria Zakharova told a weekly briefing. 

"The Black Sea space is consistently being transformed by Washington and its allies from an area of cooperation into an area of violent confrontation," she said. 

The Sea Breeze drills, led by Ukraine and the United States, follow a spike in tensions between NATO and Moscow after Russia last week said it had fired warning shots and dropped bombs in the path of a British warship to expel it from its territorial waters near Crimea. London said it did not recognize Moscow's account of the incident near the peninsula. 

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While discussing the recent incidents in the Black Sea with British and Dutch warships, Zakharova explained that these activities were clearly coordinated. 

"This demonstrates NATO's aggressive course towards Russia. The North Atlantic bloc is purposefully destabilizing the situation along the perimeter of our borders and increasing the risk of armed incidents," she said. 

Russia's Black Sea fleet said in a statement on Thursday that its warships have carried out a live fire training exercise in the Black Sea. 

In separate comments, Russia's defense ministry said it was tracking an Italian navy frigate after it entered the Black Sea on Thursday, Russian media reported.  

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(With input from Xinhua, Reuters)