Black Ops in the Black Sea: British destroyer violates Russia's border, Russian ship & fighter jet respond with warning shots

RT
Wed, 23 Jun 2021 19:44 UTC

© REUTERS / Sergey Smolentsev

British Royal Navy's Type 45 destroyer HMS Defender arrives at the Black Sea port of Odessa, Ukraine

A Russian patrol ship and fighter jet have fired warning shots after the British destroyer HMS Defender violated the country's border in the Black Sea. The UK embassy's defense attaché has been summoned by officials in Moscow.

According to Russia's Ministry of Defense, the British naval ship entered the country's territorial waters at 11:52am local time and traveled 3km inside the frontier, near Cape Fiolent, in Crimea. The peninsula is not recognized by the United Kingdom as Russian land and London believes it to be illegally occupied Ukrainian territory.

"At 12:06 and 12:08, a border patrol ship fired warning shots," the Defense Ministry said. "(And) at 12:19, a Su-24m aircraft performed a warning bombing (4 OFAB-250) ahead of the course of the USS Defender."

Four minutes later, at 12:23, the destroyer left Russian territory.

Shortly before the Defense Ministry publicised the incident, Russia's top army chief Valery Gerasimov told a Moscow security conference that NATO naval activity near the Russia's borders had "significantly increased".

"Ships equipped with high-precision long-range missile weapons operate almost on a permanent basis in the Black and Baltic Seas," he said, calling the actions "clearly provocative."

Russian Senator Sergei Tsekov, in comments to RIA Novosti, decried the warship's movements as a "flagrant violation of international norms," noting that the actions could "provoke a serious conflict."

The HMS Defender is an air-defence destroyer, launched in 2009. Designed primarily for anti-aircraft and anti-missile warfare, it is currently conducting missions in the Black Sea. Before the recent incident, the ship was docked in the Ukrainian port of Odessa, where it played host to a signing ceremony, attended by British Minister for Defence Procurement Jeremy Quin and Deputy Defense Minister of Ukraine Alexander Mironyuk. London and Kiev agreed a deal for the UK to supply warships to Ukraine, and with the British also pledging to help the country construct Black Sea naval bases.

Following the incident, Britain's Ministry of Defence denied that any warning shots were fired at the HMS Defender, claiming that the vessel is conducting "innocent passage through Ukrainian territorial waters in accordance with international law," and the Russian shots were part of a pre-planned gunnery exercise.

"No shots were directed at HMS Defender and we do not recognise the claim that bombs were dropped in her path," the statement said.

Comment: The UK MoD claiming that the passage of their vessel was "innocent" is laughably absurd. Even a BBC journalist on the HMS Defender said that the vessel's incursion into Russian waters was "deliberate, to make a point." What the point was is lost on most, since the Brits don't have the military might to stand up against the Russian navy. This isn't 1853 Britain, your boats don't scare.

Craig Murray said it best in his short article on the actions of the British navy:

Sometimes it is worth stating the obvious. The United Kingdom does not have a coast in the Black Sea. British warships are not infesting the Black Sea out of a peaceful intent, and there is no cause for them to be entering disputed waters close to anybody's coast. This is not a question of freedom of navigation under the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea. There is nowhere that a British warship can be heading from the UK under the right of innocent passage that would require it to pass through coastal waters by Crimea. The Black Sea is famously a cul-de-sac.

There is certainly a right to pass to the Ukrainian port of Odessa - but that in now way requires passing close to Crimea. This is therefore not "innocent passage". There is a right of passage through the Kerch strait, which Russia has to date respected. Russia has not just a right but a duty to enforce sea lanes for safe navigation through the strait, exactly as the UK does off Dover.

I expect we will now be in for a mad frenzy of Russophobia, yet again. I shall comment further once I have more details of why and exactly where Russia was firing warning shots. But just remember this, it was not Russian warships near the British coast, it was British warships in an area where they had no business other than ludicrous, British nationalist, sabre-rattling.

The UK needs to lose its imperial delusions. Sending gunboats to the Crimea is as mad as - well, sailing an aircraft carrier expressly to threaten the Chinese. There are those who see this activity as evidence of the UK's continued great power status. I see it as evidence of lunacy.