Russian warship fires shots at Royal Navy ship in Black Sea - Russia-UK tensions erupt

[Piotr]

And you can hear warning shots being fired. Really dont understand why british defense ministry is denying that Russians fired the shots.

Because English so called "Defence Ministry" is bunch of liars.

 

[nahtanbob]

Not much different than many European countries nowadays.

please ... no one queues up to immigrate to Russia

Russian ship firing warning shots-

When are you Anglos leaving North America and Australia ? You don't belong to North America and Australia.

Is it written somewhere ?

 

[mike2000 is back]

So the HMS Defender did enter the 12 mile limit, and it was done deliberately... Totally understandable that the Russians were upset..

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Britain acknowledges surprise at speed of Russian reaction to warship
Kremlin summons UK ambassador as Boris Johnson says HMS Defender’s deployment ‘wholly appropriate’

The Royal Navy ship HMS Defender arriving at the Black Sea port of Odessa, last week. Photograph: Sergey Smolentsev/Reuters

Dan Sabbagh in London and Andrew Roth in Moscow
Thu 24 Jun 2021 15.06 BST

British officials acknowledged they were taken by surprise by the speed of the Russian reaction to HMS Defender’s 36-minute passage through Crimean waters on Wednesday as the British ambassador to Moscow was summoned to the Kremlin.
Although a Russian response to the Royal Navy warship’s passage within the 12-mile territorial limit was anticipated, the UK Ministry of Defence did not expect the Kremlin to speedily declare that warning shots had been fired.

That dramatically escalated the situation on Wednesday lunchtime, forcing the MoD in London to scramble to establish what had happened, before concluding that the Russians had fired cannon at a safe distance behind the British warship.
“We knew that something might happen, but we didn’t quite expect the Russians to say that,” a defence source said. What had been expected to be a tense, if routine, mission to assert navigation rights in the Black Sea, had escalated into a military and diplomatic incident.
The Russian military also claimed that a jet had dropped four bombs in the path of the British destroyer to force it to change course, but that was rapidly debunked, because there was no evidence to support it.

Speaking on Thursday, Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister, said the deployment of the HMS Defender was “wholly appropriate” – although Downing St would not confirm whether he personally authorised the mission.

The prime minister added: “The important point is that we don’t recognise the Russian annexation of Crimea. This is part of a sovereign Ukrainian territory, it was entirely right that we should vindicate the law and pursue freedom of navigation in the way that we did, take the shortest route between two points, and that’s what we did.”
Russia said it would summon the British ambassador to the foreign ministry in a political escalation after the unexpected diplomatic and military clash in the Black Sea on Wednesday.
A Russian foreign ministry spokesperson said the UK ambassador, Deborah Bronnert, would receive a “severe demarche” on Thursday after HMS Defender sailed in the waters near the Crimean peninsula.
“We may appeal to common sense and demand respect for international law,” said Sergei Ryabkov, a Russian deputy foreign minister. “But if it does not help, we may drop bombs not only in the path [of the ship] but also on the target itself, if colleagues do not understand.”

01:08
Boris Johnson defends warship's passage through Crimean waters – video
A clearer chronology began to emerge on Thursday. HMS Defender had planned to sail for about an hour through territorial waters off Cape Fiolent in Crimea, less than 12 miles from the disputed territory, on Wednesday lunchtime local time.
The warship intended to take what the UK said was an internationally recognised shipping lane, on a direct route between the Ukrainian port of Odessa and Batumi, in Georgia, to assert freedom of navigation rights and show support to Kyiv.
Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, in an annexation that is not recognised by the UK or other western territories, and the Royal Navy knew the Russians guarded their waters closely.
During the passage through the Crimean waters, HMS Defender was shadowed by two Russian coastguard ships, one of which got as close as about 100 metres, while an estimated 20 aircraft buzzed overhead, in some cases at heights as low as 150 metres, according to British estimates, in a deliberate attempt to harass the warship on its journey.
A parliamentary statement released by the UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, on Thursday said that HMS Defender entered “Ukrainian territorial waters” at 9.50am UK time – local time 11.50am – engaged on “innocent passage”.
Exactly 10 minutes later, the statement continued, “a Russian coastguard vessel warned that Russian units would shortly commence a live-fire gunnery exercise”. Artillery was seen behind or astern the navy ship at 10.08am, but it was “out of range” and “posed no danger”.
BBC and Daily Mail journalists on the warship both heard cannon fire in the distance – but UK defence sources on Thursday said the heavy guns were three miles away, using weapons understood to have a range of 2.5 miles. Because they were not fired at the vessel they could not be considered to be warning shots.
“At no point were warning shots fired at HMS Defender,” Wallace said, “nor bombs dropped in her path as has been asserted by the Russian authorities.” HMS Defender then departed the territorial waters at 10.26am UK time.
A few minutes later, Russia’s defence ministry told the Interfax news agency that warning shots had been fired at the British warship and bombs dropped in its path, with the first reports in English emerging at 11.05am. The UK denial emerged an hour later, at 12.09pm, as the incident had already become headline news.

View attachment 756104

The two countries routinely test each other’s defences, with Russian jets often flying close to British airspace and warships sailing through the Channel. However, incidents involving open fire are very rare.
The incident has been played up on Russian state television as a provocation that exemplifies the need for Russia to defend itself from Nato powers.
Russian diplomatic and military officials have warned they were ready to fire on foreign ships in order to assert Russia’s control over Crimea and its coastal waters.
On Wednesday evening, Russia’s defence ministry released video of its ships and aircraft monitoring the British navy destroyer but did not show a bombing run or shots fired near the HMS Defender.
Russia has already fired on other ships off the coast of Crimea. In 2018, the Russian coastguard fired on three Ukrainian ships traversing the Kerch strait and blocked the narrow waterway with a barge. It held the ships and 24 captured Ukrainian sailors for more than six months before releasing them in a prisoner swap in 2019.

Britain acknowledges surprise at speed of Russian reaction to warship

Kremlin summons UK ambassador as Boris Johnson says HMS Defender’s deployment ‘wholly appropriate’

www.theguardian.com

Russia is just making a big deal out of this for internal propaganda purposes by Putin to show it's people how it's standing up to the west and bla bla bla. There was no need for such a useless action of firing so called 'warning shots' and playing the incident up all over their news as some sort of victory. This type of behaviour is expected from regional countries like Iran not a major power like Russia.
Russian jets and navy ships have also crossed through/close to our territorial waters several times before, in fact it happens quite often, but you don't see us taking such 'useless grandstanding' actions. We just shadow them and escort them out of our airspace/waters and that's it. No big deal, big power play these games all the time. Don't see the big deal here, and i don't see what Putin is trying to achieve here. He will remain Russia's president for life, so i don't see why he is trying to show his people with this silly actions.

 

[mike2000 is back]

China should learn from Russia, shoot those Brits in south China sea.

You guys are not Russia, you don't have Russia's history or environment, and different geography/economic system etc. So it's like comparing apple and oranges.
Moreover, your country has farrrrrrrrrr more to lose than Russia in the event of taking such an action. Russia doesnt have much to lose even if they were to start a limited conflict with us since Russia doesn't export much to us to the West anyway(apart from oil and gas) and their economic weight is almost insignificant(smaller economy than even Italy). By contrast China is more of an economic/trading world power and so relies on trade/links with the West much more, so any disruption and united action due to conflict with the West will disrupt your country's growth/development for little to no gain, as such China has soooo much more to lose, so the stakes are much higher for you guys than for Russia who has little or nothing to lose to be honest. Your leaders are not fools to blindly follow Russia's examples. They are two different countries and different conditions.
Any such rash attempts by China will only bring and unite the whole West against China even more, and will pull many western countries who have been reluctant and against taking firm measures against China to follow the others who have been clamouring for a tougher approach against China. So nothing good will come out of that for you guys. Why do you think China has been reluctant to even engage in conflict with Taiwan, a province it still claims as its own even after all this time? if you guys haven't launch a conflict to retake Taiwan, what chance do you think your leaders will decide to launch conflict against any western country? Probability for that is less than 0, and it's logical actually.
moreover, we still regard Russia as our main threat, not China. We regard china merely as a major challenge/competitor not military threat. So you will be targeting the wrong opponent. Europe views China differently from the US, reason we have been collaborating with you guys in many sectors that the US doesn't.

Russia an 'active threat' and China a 'systemic challenge', Integrated Review will warn | UK News | Sky News
Russia 'direct threat to Europe's security': Germany (aa.com.tr)
UK calls Russia top threat, issues warning on China, promises to build more nuclear warheads - CNN

 

[TigerOfMysore]

The last time I checked Pakistanis queue up to settle in UK not Russia

What does that mean? Yes Pakistanis like any national from a broad set of countries including Russia line up to get to the UK. Why? Economic migrants. Not because of some love of Queen and country. Reverse the economic condition and watch the the Brits line up in some hot, desert muslim place. Oh wait. I forgot they do and it is called UAE.

 

[nahtanbob]

What does that mean? Yes Pakistanis like any national from a broad set of countries including Russia line up to get to the UK. Why? Economic migrants. Not because of some love of Queen and country. Reverse the economic condition and watch the the Brits line up in some hot, desert muslim place. Oh wait. I forgot they do and it is called UAE.

Pakistanis will line up to go to Russia. See if Russians let anyone in

 

[Genghis khan1]

NOPE vast majority of Pakistanis and even Indians who think to immigrate think about the 'evil West' first and foremost (mainly U.S,UK, Canada, Australia). Hardly any of them think of Russia as a first choice. lol Their support for Russia ends on their keyboard. I can't blame them though(not much opportunities for them in Russia). lol

There is nothing evil about cold hard cash. Money has no religion. You will see many highly qualified Pork eating, beer drinking, nudity loving, Right leaning, Muslim hating conservative form regions like Texas working for evil muslims in the middle of burning Arabian desert with their head down, for cold hard cash.
Their values, beliefs, criticism, opinion, freedoms, take a back seat when they jump on the plane to evil east.

 

[nahtanbob]

There is nothing evil about cold hard cash. Money has no religion. You will see many highly qualified Pork eating, beer drinking, nudity loving, Right leaning, Muslim hating conservative form regions like Texas working for evil muslims in the middle of burning Arabian desert with their head down, for cold hard cash.
Their values, beliefs, criticism, opinion, freedoms, take a back seat when they jump on the plane to evil east.

They earn the money and get the hell out when they are done with work. They never settle down in Arabia.
I cannot say the same for the West and American hating and Islam loving Pakistanis

 

[Genghis khan1]

They earn the money and get the hell out when they are done with work. They never settle down in Arabia.
I cannot say the same for the West and American hating and Islam loving Pakistanis

Cuz they not done earning money.

 

[nahtanbob]

Cuz they not done earning money.

It is more like they are not being kicked out back to Pakistan or allowed to stay

 

[KAL-EL]

China should learn from Russia, shoot those Brits in south China sea.

I see that you are enjoying your video game

 

[Genghis khan1]

It is more like they are not being kicked out back to Pakistan or allowed to stay

Someone needs to fill all those mentally tedious jobs that requires 4.0 GPA and years of study. You can’t smoke weed, drink beer and become a doctor.

 

[GumNaam]

Russian warship 'fires shots at Royal Navy ship' in Black Sea

A RUSSIAN warship fired shells at a Royal Navy vessel today, state media has claimed, threatening relations between the countries.

www.express.co.uk

 

[Invicta]

Russian ship firing warning shots-

When are you Anglos leaving North America and Australia ? You don't belong to North America and Australia.

Never - go fire some more warning shots.

 

[Whizzack]

Russia is just making a big deal out of this for internal propaganda purposes by Putin to show it's people how it's standing up to the west and bla bla bla. There was no need for such a useless action of firing so called 'warning shots' and playing the incident up all over their news as some sort of victory. This type of behaviour is expected from regional countries like Iran not a major power like Russia.
Russian jets and navy ships have also crossed through/close to our territorial waters several times before, in fact it happens quite often, but you don't see us taking such 'useless grandstanding' actions. We just shadow them and escort them out of our airspace/waters and that's it. No big deal, big power play these games all the time. Don't see the big deal here, and i don't see what Putin is trying to achieve here. He will remain Russia's president for life, so i don't see why he is trying to show his people with this silly actions.

Can you share the story / news of such an incident of where the Russians actually really crossed into the UK territorial waters without approval (and not just merely close to it)..? I'm really curious... I really don't see how the western media will not drum it up if such an incident were to really happen.. After all there was recently a big fuss just because some French fisherman fishing in Jersey territorial waters..