In a Thursday warning, Russia threatened to bomb British naval vessels in the Black Sea if the British navy continued to act provocatively off the Crimean coast. After the warship breached what the Kremlin claims are its territorial waters but which Britain and most of the world consider Ukraine’s, Russia summoned the British ambassador in Moscow for a formal diplomatic rebuke.
According to the British government, Russia misrepresented the incident. In Moscow, Russia summoned Ambassador Deborah Bronnert for reprimand over what it said was Britain’s ‘dangerous’ actions in the Black Sea, while a foreign ministry official accused London of ‘barefaced lies’. Sergei Ryabkov, in response to Moscow’s version of events, in which a Russian aircraft bombed the path of the British destroyer, said in future bombs would be sent not only in the path but on the target. Russia used the Black Sea to project its power in the Mediterranean, serving as a flashpoint between its competitors such as Turkey, France, Britain and the United States. In 2014, Russia seized and annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine and considers the area around its coast to be Russian waters. Crimea is considered a part of Ukraine by Western nations, and the claim to the surrounding waters is denied by Russia.
Mr. Johnson said the British warship, which was traveling from Odessa, Ukraine, to Batumi, Georgia, was acting under the law and was in international waters. ‘These are Ukrainian waters and they were entirely appropriate for us to use,’ he said. Defense Minister Ben Wallace accused Russian pilots of unsafe manoeuvres 500 feet (152 m) above the warship.
In international law of the sea, innocent passage permits government ships to pass through another country’s territorial waters as long as it does not interfere with its security. Britain disputed the Russian version of events, calling it ‘predictably inaccurate’.Since the 2018 poisoning of Russian double agent Sergei Skripal with a Soviet-developed nerve agent named Novichok, a mole who betrayed hundreds of Russian agents to Britain’s MI6 foreign spy service, relations between London and Moscow have been strained.
Russian Officials said that the submarine ventured a distance of 3 kilometers (2 miles) into their waters near Cape Fiolent, a sight on Crimea’s southern coast near the port of Sevastopol, the headquarters of the Russian Navy’s Black Sea fleet. The BBC released footage from the ship of a Russian coast guard warning that he would shoot if the British ship did not alter course.
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As a heavily accented Russian voice spoke in English to the British ship, he warned, ‘If you don’t change course, I’ll fire’. According to the BBC, shots were fired and up to 20 Russian aircraft buzzed the British ship. Russia conducted a gunnery exercise, the British government said. The footage was filmed from a SU-24 bomber flying close to the British vessel. ‘These aircraft posed no immediate threat to HMS Defender, but some of the maneuvers were neither safe nor professional,’ Wallace said.
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