UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Wednesday said a Russian warship’s warning shots fired near a yacht in the English Channel were “reckless” but not “sinister,” in the latest at-sea tension between London and Moscow.
British defence sources have told AFP that the incident involving a UK-registered yacht and the Russian frigate Admiral Grigorovich took place around 20 miles south of the Isle of Wight, just south of British waters, on Tuesday.
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The Russian vessel fired the shots to avoid a collision, the British defence ministry has said, with a defence source telling AFP the frigate was believed to have been “drifting rather than being manoeuvred under power, which may have made her feel more vulnerable.”
“I think it’s reckless,” Starmer said following the incident, which came after UK commandos intercepted and boarded a suspected Russian shadow fleet vessel on Sunday in the same part of the Channel.
