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Russia's Black Sea warning to Britain over HMS Defender
Summary
A dispute over a Royal Navy destroyer's route near Crimea led Moscow to threaten force against British vessels.
What did Russia threaten after the HMS Defender incident? On 24 June 2021, Moscow warned the United Kingdom that it would bomb British vessels if the Royal Navy took any further provocative action in the Black Sea.
The warning followed an incident on 23 June 2021. Russia's Defence Ministry said a Russian Navy patrol ship fired shots and a Su-24 attack aircraft dropped bombs in the path of the destroyer HMS Defender, which it said had entered Russian-claimed territorial waters near Crimea. The UK Ministry of Defence rejected that account. It said a Russian military exercise was under way in the vicinity and denied that any shots or bombs had been directed at the ship.
Competing positions
Russia had also summoned the British ambassador over the incident. London's position on 24 June was that the vessel had been in Ukrainian waters and that it was entirely right to use the route. The UK added that the Royal Navy would always uphold international law and would not accept unlawful interference with innocent passage.
The two sides thus disagreed on where the ship was, on what happened around it and on the legal status of the waters. Each stated its position firmly, and Russia's threat of bombing raised the stakes for any future Royal Navy transit near Crimea.
