MOSCOW, November 23. /TASS/. Media allegations about what was described as contact between the Chief of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, and Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, Rob Bauer, on the safety of shipping in the Black Sea were fake news, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday.

The Euractiv online resource earlier in the day quoted a NATO source as saying that Bauer and Gerasimov "recently agreed to ‘be careful’, especially with ships not navigating in close proximity of each other in the Black Sea to avoid ‘accidents’."

"Western media speculations about an alleged ‘recent’ conversation between the Chief of the General Staff of Russia’s Armed Forces, General of the Army Valery Gerasimov, and the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, Rob Bauer, are fakes. There was no such contact, let alone ‘systematic’, with the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee or other representatives of the North Atlantic Alliance within a non-existent Russian-American crisis commission for conflict resolution," the Defense Ministry said, adding that the speculations about the conclusion of a certain "agreement" with Bauer regarding the safe movement of ships in the Black Sea were "fictitious from beginning to end."