Russia’s tough claim to UK after Black Sea incident with British ship

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that the recent raid by the British destroyer “HMS Defender” near southern Crimea constitutes a “flagrant violation” of international standards, and he urged London to investigate the incident.

According to the account of the episode, the British ship entered Black Sea waters near the region illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, forcing a Russian warship to warning shots to fire to make him go, after ignoring a warning.

This is the first incident since the Cold War in which Moscow uses munitions of war to deter a NATO warship, reflecting the heightened tensions between Russia and the West.

“The dangerous actions of the British destroyer have been assessed by the Russian Defense Ministry as a flagrant violation of the United Nations Convention on the 1982 law of the sea, ”the military entity said in a statement.

The Defense Ministry demanded a “thorough investigation actions of the crew of the Destroyer Defender to avoid similar incidents in the future. ”

British Ambassador Deborah Bronnert was summoned to the Foreign Ministry, according to Russian diplomatic spokeswoman María Zajárova during her weekly press conference.

In turn, the department headed by Sergei Shoigu transferred his post to the United Kingdom’s military attaché, whom he immediately summoned.

informed him that the ship “Violated the state border of Russia” and entered at a depth of three kilometers into Russian territorial waters, which has been denied by the United Kingdom, which maintains that it was in “Ukrainian territorial waters, in accordance with international law”.

However Moscow stressed that “the destroyer had been warned in advance of the possible use of weapons in the event of illegal detention in Russian territorial waters ”.

“The crew did not react to the obvious warning signals corresponding to naval laws, which forced the coast guard vessel to fire warning shots,” the Russian side added.

In addition, as an “additional alert”, a Russian Su-24M aircraft dropped several bombs in front of the ship.

The British Ministry of Defense, for its part, denied that the Russian Navy fired warning shots, noting that the ship was taking an “innocent step through Ukrainian territorial waters, in accordance with international law. “

According to the British military entity, the Russian Navy carried out naval exercises, and that’s what he communicated to the British Navy.

The HMS Defender, a Type 45 destroyer, is part of the United Kingdom’s carrier strike group currently targeting the Indo-Pacific region.

However, earlier this month it was announced that he would temporarily separate from the group to carry out his “own set of missions” in the Black Sea.

Russia annexed the Ukrainian peninsula from Crimea in 2014, a decision rejected by most countries in the world. Moscow frequently complains about the presence of NATO warships in the Black Sea near Crimea and claims it is destabilizing.

With information from AP and EFE agencies