What the HMS Defender standoff off Crimea exposed

What did the HMS Defender incident actually show? On 25 June 2021, the dispute in the Black Sea was in its third day, and the two governments still described the same encounter in opposing terms.

On 23 June 2021, Russia's Defence Ministry said a Russian Navy patrol ship had fired shots and a Su-24 attack aircraft had dropped bombs in the path of the Royal Navy destroyer. It said the British ship had entered Russian-claimed territorial waters near Crimea. The UK Ministry of Defence rejected that account. It said the Russian activity was part of a military exercise in the vicinity and denied that any shots or bombs had been directed at the ship.

The disagreement was one of geography as much as of events. The UK said the vessel was in Ukrainian waters, that it was entirely right to use the route, and that the Royal Navy would always uphold international law and would not accept unlawful interference with innocent passage. Russia treated the same waters as its own.

On 24 June 2021, Moscow escalated its language. Russia warned that it would bomb British vessels if the Royal Navy took any further provocative action in the Black Sea. It had already summoned the British ambassador to Russia over the incident.

The lesson for readers in Kyiv and beyond is that the waters off Crimea remained a place where two governments could not agree on basic facts, from the ship's position to whether weapons were fired. The UK's position placed the route in Ukrainian waters, which tied a naval passage directly to Ukraine's territorial claims.