The Russian military, who opened a warning fire on the course of the destroyer Defender, made it clear that “Crimea is a fortress, and the borders of Russia are locked,” Aksenov said. The British Ministry of Defense denied firing towards the ship
Sergey Aksenov
The head of the Crimea, Sergey Aksenov, called the incident with the British destroyer Defender in the Black Sea a provocation and said that “Russia should not be tested for strength”. He wrote about this on his page in the social network in “VKontakte”.
According to Aksenov, the Russian military “promptly and effectively” responded to the incident.
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“They fired warning shots, made it clear that Crimea is a fortress, and the borders of Russia are locked,” he said.
For those who “had the stupidity to try Russia for strength”, “it always ended badly”, the head of the republic added.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, on June 23, the British destroyer Defender sailed 3 km beyond the Russian border in the Black Sea near Cape Fiolent in the Crimea. According to the ministry, after Defender did not respond to preliminary warnings about the violation of the state border, the Russian patrol ship opened warning fire on the course of the destroyer, and the Su-24M aircraft dropped four high-explosive fragmentation bombs in front of it. After that, the Defender left the Russian territorial waters.
The Russian Defense Ministry demanded that Britain investigate the incident and summoned the British military attache. In turn, the British Defense Ministry said that there were no warning shots in the direction of the destroyer and no bombs were dropped in front of it. The ministry suggested that it was a training shooting of the Russian military, and added that the ship was making a peaceful “routine” crossing through the territorial waters of Ukraine.
Later, the BBC correspondent Jonathan Beale, who was on board the Defender ship, reported that the Defender was deliberately going to go 19 km deep into the territorial waters of the Crimea. “The captain insisted that this was the only possible safe passage in the area,” the journalist said. According to him, the ship’s crew was alerted, and the weapons were put on alert.
After the journalist’s report, the Russian Foreign Ministry called the reports of the British Ministry of Defense about the incident a lie. “Who is lying: the British Ministry of Defense, a British journalist of the BBC TV channel or the British embassy in Moscow? The answer is there. This time & mdash; the British Ministry of Defense and the British Embassy. Well, it’s not all right for the British special services to substitute the BBC, ” said the official representative of the department, Maria Zakharova.