As the fallout from Keir Starmer’s defence funding row continues, Britain has been served a timely reminder of the importance of being prepared for a fresh escalation of tensions with Russia. A Russian warship, the Admiral Grigorovich, fired warning shots at an unarmed British civilian yacht in the Channel shortly before lunchtime yesterday.
The circumstances around the incident – which took place 20 nautical miles off the Isle of Wight, outside British waters – remain somewhat unclear. The owners of the 40-foot British yacht, Jane and Alan Kelvey, claim they came no closer than 500 metres (0.3 miles) to the 409-foot Admiral Grigorovich. The Russian warship then sounded its horn a number of times before firing its guns, they said. The couple, who were en route to France at the time, claim they ‘didn’t do anything wrong’ and that allegations they were on a ‘collision course’ with the ship were ‘simply not true’. The Admiral Grigorovich, the Kelveys claim, was not broadcasting its GPS position at the time of the incident.
British military sources seem somewhat unperturbed by the incident
The Russian Ministry of Defence, however, claims that the Kelveys’ yacht, Bright Future, was heading ‘dangerously close’ to the Admiral Grigorovich. Despite trying to get its attention with flares and horn blasts, the yacht, Moscow claims, actually got as close as 150 metres to the warship, at which point ‘the frigate’s commander decided to fire preemptively at the vessel’s course with small arms’.
