According to a reporter on board, the captain of the British destroyer claimed that this was the safest way. The ship’s crew was alerted, and the weapons were put on alert, he claims
Destroyer HMS Defender
The BBC correspondent Jonathan Beale, who was on board the Defender ship, reported details of the incident with the British destroyer off the coast of Crimea.
The material of the Bill claims that when the British warship approached the territorial waters of the Crimea, its crew was alerted, and the weapons were put on alert. “Defender was deliberately going to go deeper into the 12-mile zone of the territorial waters of the Crimea. The captain insisted that this is the only possible safe passage in the area, ” the BBC journalist quotes.
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He claims that two Russian coast guard ships tried to block the path of the British destroyer, one of which approached the Defender at a distance of 100m. Beale says that the destroyer received “increasingly threatening warnings”, one of which spoke about the possible opening of fire if the Defender did not change course. “We heard some shots in the distance, but we thought they were out of reach,” Beal said.
According to the journalist, the destroyer was accompanied by about 20 Russian military aircraft.
As previously reported in the Russian Defense Ministry, on June 23, a British destroyer violated the Russian border in the Black Sea near Cape Fiolent in the Crimea and did not respond to preliminary warnings, then a Russian patrol ship was forced to open a warning fire, and a Su-24M bomber dropped four high-explosive fragmentation bombs in front of the intruder ship. After that, Defender left the Russian territorial waters.
The British military department claims that there were no warning shots in the direction of the destroyer and no bombs were dropped in front of it. They suggested that it was a training shooting of the Russian military. The ministry said that the ship was making a peaceful passage through the territorial waters of Ukraine.
The destroyer Defender entered the Black Sea on June 14 together with the Dutch air defense frigate Evertsen, after which the Black Sea Fleet began tracking their actions. Before reaching the coast of Crimea, Defender visited the port of Odessa.