Russia warns UK to respect borders, or it may ‘drop bombs’ on intruding ships
Russia has warned the UK that if it fails to respect ‘Russian borders’ then it may bomb intruding ships, while the UK continues to deny any shots or bombs were fired.
Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said: “The inviolability of the Russian borders is an absolute imperative”, adding that they will be protected “by all means, diplomatic, political and military if needed”.
“We may appeal to reason and demand to respect international law.
“If it doesn’t help, we may drop bombs and not just in the path but right on target if colleagues don’t get it otherwise.”
Russia has maintained that it fired ‘warning shots’ at the HMS Defender and dropped four bombs.
‘Innocent passage’
The UK has passed off Russia’s Black Sea warning shots as ‘not uncommon’, a minister said today, as Britain tries to play down the spat.
Yesterday, a British destroyer ship was accused of breaching territorial waters off the Crimea peninsula, which Britain and most of the world says belong to Ukraine.
“I don’t think there is anything in this particular event that people should get too carried away by,” environment secretary George Eustice told Sky.
“I don’t think there were warning shots, there was a gunnery exercise that was taking place, and it’s not uncommon for the Russians to do this in this area. The incident is not particularly abnormal in that sense.”
Foreign secretary Dominic Raab has since said, however, that “no shots were fired at HMS Defender”.
Telling reporters in Singapore during a trade talks visit, Raab added that Russia’s claims were innacurate.
“The Royal Navy ship was conducting innocent passage through Ukrainian territorial waters. We were doing so in accordance with international law and the Russian characterisation is predictably inaccurate.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry has called the passage of the British warship “blatant provocation”.
Britain disputed Russia’s account, saying no warning shots had been fired and that no bombs had been dropped in the path of HMS Defender.
UK Defence Minister Ben Wallace has also denied claims from the Russian ministry that Britain’s ambassador had been summoned over the incident.
Annexed Crimea
Russia seized and annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and has since considered areas around the peninsula’s coast to be Russian waters.
The warning shots came in the same week that a UK government minister signed an agreement to bolster a defence partnership with Ukraine.
The new deal will see the “creation of new naval bases”, the government said in a statement, alongside the introduction “new naval platforms” and “defence shipborne armaments”.
Russia, one of the strongest military powers in the world, said the British ship had sailed two miles into its waters near Cape Fiolent.
The UK government introduced a defence innovation loan for SMEs in the defence sector today.
Post-Brexit Britain appears to be beefing up its defence capabilities, offering SMEs loans of up to £1.6m to bolster their defence tech.