A US guided-missile destroyer is en route to the Black Sea but naval officials said Thursday it was a "routine" deployment that was planned before the crisis unfolded in Ukraine.

The USS Truxtun departed the Greek port of Souda Bay Thursday to carry out joint training with Romanian and Bulgarian forces, the US Navy said in a statement.

"While in the Black Sea, the ship will conduct a port visit and routine, previously planned exercises with allies and partners in the region," it said.

The mission was "scheduled well in advance of her departure from the United States," it said.

Although portrayed as unrelated to tensions in Ukraine, where pro-Russian forces have taken de facto control over the Crimean peninsula, the presence of a US naval destroyer in the Black Sea sends a symbolic message to Moscow.

The move comes a day after the Pentagon sought to reassure anxious allies in Central and Eastern Europe over Russia's actions in Ukraine, announcing plans to send more F-15 fighter jets to patrol the skies over Baltic states and stepping up aviation training in Poland.

At the moment, the only US naval ship deployed in the Black Sea is the USS Taylor, a frigate undergoing repairs at the Turkish port of Samsun after having run aground last month.

The Truxton is part of the George HW Bush aircraft carrier strike group currently assigned to the US Navy's 6th fleet, which oversees operations in the Mediterranean.

US sends six fighters for NATO Baltics patrols: Lithuania
Vilnius (AFP) March 06, 2014 –

The United States on Thursday sent six additional F-15 fighter jets to step up NATO's air patrols over the Baltic states, mission host Lithuania said as West-Russia tensions simmered over Ukraine.

"I have had confirmation that the air police missions will be reinforced by six additional F-15 fighters," Defence Minister Juozas Olekas told AFP.

The move is a response to "Russian aggression in Ukraine and additional military activity in the Kaliningrad region," Russia's exclave bordering Lithuania and Poland, he said.

"We have witnessed increased military activity in Kaliningrad. Today it is less than three or four days before."

The jets took off from the US-run Lakenheath air base in eastern England and landed on Thursday afternoon at Lithuania's Zokniai air base, once the home of Red Army troops near the northern town of Siauliai, the ministry said in a statement.

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite told reporters in Brussels that the jets are a sign that "NATO is responding promptly and fast".

"Europe still is not able to understand what is happening," she said.

"Russia today is dangerous. Russia today is unpredictable."

Since January, four US F-15 fighter jets have been assigned for air patrols over Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — three ex-Soviet Baltic states which are members of NATO but which lack sufficient aircraft to patrol their skies.

The countries broke away from the crumbling Soviet Union in 1991 after five decades of Communist rule and joined NATO in 2004.

They have repeatedly voiced their concern at the Russian military build-up near their border — and the escalating crisis in Crimea has added to that unease.

Grybauskaite on Wednesday urged NATO to increase its "visibility in the Baltic states".

Defence ministry spokeswoman Viktorija Cieminyte told AFP that NATO had scrambled jets more than 40 times last year in response to the increased number of flights of Russian aircraft near the Baltic states' borders.

NATO also sent more fighters to identify Russian aircraft in January and February than in 2012, she said, declining to provide specific numbers.