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Putin charged that the U.S. aircraft's apparent mission was to monitor the Russian military's response to the British destroyer.

"It was clearly a provocation, a complex one involving not only the British but also the Americans," he said, adding that Moscow was aware of the U.S. intentions and responded accordingly to avoid revealing sensitive data.

The Russian leader lamented that the move closely followed his summit with U.S. President Joe Biden in Geneva this month.

"The world is undergoing a radical change," he said. "Our U.S. partners realize that, and that's why the Geneva meeting took place. But on the other hand, they are trying to secure their monopolist stance, resulting in threats and destructive action such as drills, provocations and sanctions."

Even though the West doesn't recognize Crimea as part of Russia, Putin said the naval incident took the controversy to a new level.

"They don't recognize something — OK, they can keep refusing to recognize it," he said. "But why conduct such provocations?"

Putin insisted Russia would firmly defend its interests.

"We are fighting for ourselves and our future on our own territory," he said. "It's not us who traveled thousands of kilometers (miles) to come to them; it's them who have come to our borders and violated our territorial waters."

Dmitri Trenin, the director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, warned that last week's Black Sea incident presages a new, riskier level of confrontation.

"Fresh attempts to expose Russian 'red line' deterrence as hollow -- whether on the ground, in the air, or at sea -- would push Moscow to defend what it cannot give up without losing its self-respect," Trenin said in a commentary.

"This would almost inevitably lead to clashes and casualties, which would carry the risk of further escalation. Should this happen, Russia-NATO confrontation would deteriorate literally to the point of brinkmanship, a truly bleak scenario."

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"An Islamist background for the crimes is likely," the Munich Prosecutor's Office said in a joint statement with Bavarian police on Tuesday, describing Monday's rampage. The perpetrator shouted "Allahu Akbar" at least two times during the incident.

He was confronted by several brave civilians, disturbing footage from the scene shows, who tried to fend him off with chairs and other objects before the police arrived. Officers shot the man in the leg and took him into custody.

The attacker was not known to the authorities as an extremist, nor on any watch lists, German media reported earlier. Nonetheless, investigators reportedly recovered Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) propaganda materials from the homeless shelter where he lived.

This is notable because a number of these attackers are known to intelligence services: Austrian attacker was under surveillance as known jihadist but 'mistakes' led to investigation being dropped

He has reportedly shown no remorse for his actions, telling the police he had achieved his "jihad" goals. A senior security official, Joachim Herrmann, said the suspect had been admitted to a psychiatric unit suffering mental ill health a few days prior to the attack and subsequently released.

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