Russian Warship Fires At British Yacht Near Isle of Wight
A Russian warship fired warning shots within a few hundred metres of the British pleasure yacht Bright Future at 11.40am on Tuesday, in the Channel south of the Isle of Wight. The episode happened in international waters and left no injuries or damage reported aboard the yacht.
Bright Future and the Admiral Grigorovich
The yacht was sailing across the Channel when the Russian frigate Admiral Grigorovich came close enough for British sources to say more than one shot may have been fired after the yacht got near the warship. Russia’s defence ministry said the yacht was on a dangerous course, that several attempts were made to contact it, and that signal rockets were fired before a warning shot was fired.
Russia’s defence ministry said the yacht continued to within 150 metres before the warning shot was fired. The Ministry of Defence said: "We are investigating reports of an incident in the Channel". Those onboard were later visited by a boat sent from HMS Tyne to gather details and check the crew was safe.
Isle of Wight and Normandy waters
The incident took place more than 20 miles south of the Isle of Wight and less than 40 miles north of Normandy, France, putting the encounter in a busy stretch of water used by commercial and private traffic. The yacht kept going after the exchange, and British sources said they viewed the Channel incident as an isolated episode and not linked to the UK seizure of the Russia-linked oil tanker Smyrtos off the coast of the Isle of Wight.
The Smyrtos seizure had already brought the two countries into another public dispute. The captain, Ajay Pant, was charged in Southampton with breaching UK sanctions on the export of Russian oil, and the tanker was carrying 98,000 tonnes of Russian crude bound for India at the time.
London and Moscow after Tuesday
The Channel encounter comes as London and Moscow remain on edge after a separate set of developments in Britain. On Monday, two men were found guilty of conspiring to carry out an arson attack on property connected to Keir Starmer, and on Tuesday at the G7 summit in France, the prime minister said he was pleased that justice has now been done.
Last week, John Healey resigned as defence secretary, while Rich Knighton told a Lords committee that Britain would have to dial back on military operations and exercises in the next few years if the Ministry of Defence did not receive extra funding. The next pressure point is whether the Ministry of Defence widens its Channel inquiry into the Admiral Grigorovich encounter or treats it as a one-off episode.
