A British yachting couple fired on by a Russian warship in the English Channel has accused the Ministry of Defence of trying to blame them for the dangerous brush.Jane Kelvey, 68, and husband Alan, 70, branded the government's version of events 'rubbish', after it was implied their navigation could have been at fault.The retired couple were sailing from Britain to the French coast when they spotted the Russian vessel 500m off in the Channel on Tuesday morning.As they approached, they heard five blasts on the horn from the Russian frigate Admiral Grigorovich - followed seconds later by gunfire. It is believed the Russian ship fired up to five times into the water ahead of them. British military sources played down the encounter as a 'nautical incident' outside British waters that arose from the foggy conditions, rather than aggressive behaviour by Russia.This suggested the blame lay with the British pensioners for getting too close to the ship.But the couple has hit back, insisting they did nothing wrong - and accusing the government of trying to stifle the incident.They said: 'They’re trying to close the story down now, saying that it was foggy and they were shooting flares up. It’s rubbish.' Jane Kelvey, 68 and her husband Alan, 70, insist they did nothing wrong The owners of the yacht (both pictured) said the Russian vessel fired up to five gunshots Russia's Defence Ministry accused the yacht of 'following a dangerous course' too close to RFN Admiral Grigorovich (pictured)Asked why they were seemingly being blamed for the encounter, Mr Kelvey said: 'It’s inflammatory, isn’t it?'Russia's own Defence Ministry insisted the Kelveys had been following a 'dangerous course', and claimed its ship had fired only warning flares and sound signals.Speaking to The Telegraph in France, Mr Kelvey refuted this as well, saying: 'We didn’t see any flares at all. They normally go bang and you see them. It wasn’t a problem of fog. [We could] see him clearly. He could see us clearly.'On Wednesday, Sir Keir Starmer said the shots were 'reckless' but not 'sinister'.He said: 'We were discussing it here at the G7 yesterday, so we’ve got to be on our guard, but the incident in the Channel... MoD assessment is that it was actually a drifting warship, rather than anything more sinister.'Confronted with the couple's accusations, the MoD referred back to Starmer's statement, and has been approached for further comment.Speaking to The i paper about their ordeal, Mrs Kelvey previously said: 'It was a bit scary. I crouched down. I didn’t think our safety was in danger. But it was certainly unusual. As we sailed away, we said to each other, "What the hell just happened?"'She added: 'It was totally unnecessary. We didn’t have any contact from them [Admiral Grigorovich] on our radio.'We weren’t moving towards them – we were at a safe distance. But we began pulling further away from them.' The couple have since revealed further details about the concerning incident, including that the warship did not show up on their Automatic Identification System (AIS), there was no flag identifying its nationality - and at no point did the crew attempt to radio them.Speaking to BBC Newsnight, Jane said: 'As we got closer still we saw Cyrillic lettering along the side. We were about 400 or 500 metres off, it was on our starboard side, it was motionless. It was not adrift.'As we approached, they gave out five blasts on their horn which means "have you seen us?"Despite manoeuvring their yacht away from the warship, the couple were met with what they believe was 'a warning fire that went up in the air'.When asked if they agree with Russian officials that they were to blame for the gunfire, the couple answered: 'Absolutely not'.Jane added: 'It was completely unnecessary. They're blaming us, [but] as far as we are concerned we were blameless.'She also related how following the 'surreal' incident Jane wanted to radio the coastguard for assistance.