LONDON (AP) — A British yacht owner who was warned away from a Russian warship by gunfire criticized the U.K. government Wednesday as Prime Minister Keir Starmer tried to downplay the incident by saying there wasn’t anything sinister about it. Alan Kelvey, 70, and his wife, Jane, 68, said the shots were fired Tuesday morning when they crossed paths with the warship in the English Channel. The U.K. Defense Ministry described the encounter as “an isolated incident,” and Starmer said the Russian ship was seeking to avoid a collision. British media reported that the crew of the frigate Admiral Grigorovich fired warning shots into the air after failing to contact the yacht by other means in foggy conditions.Alan Kelvey rejected the tone of the accounts of the incident, saying officials were trying to minimize an “inflammatory” encounter. “They’re trying to close the story down now, saying that it was foggy and they were shooting flares up,” he told Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper. “It’s rubbish.”
No one was injured during the encounter and the couple completed their journey to Cherbourg on the northern coast of France. But the incident underscored heightened tensions between the U.K. and Russia as Moscow steps up military activity in the air and seas around Britain.
