No shots were fired on a British destroyer in the Black Sea and Russia’s explanation of the incident was “predictably inaccurate,” British Secretary of Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs Dominic Raab said yesterday.
Russia on Wednesday said it had fired warning shots and dropped bombs in the path of the Royal Navy destroyer the HMS Defender to chase it out of waters Moscow claims in the Black Sea off the Crimean Peninsula.
“No shots were fired at HMS Defender,” Raab told reporters in Singapore during a visit to discuss trade deals.
Photo: Reuters
“The Royal Navy ship was conducting innocent passage through Ukrainian territorial waters. We were doing so in accordance with international law and the Russian characterization is predictably inaccurate,” he added.
Britain has played down the incident.
Such gunnery exercises were not particularly abnormal, British Secretary for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs George Eustice told Sky yesterday.
“I don’t think there is anything in this particular event that people should get too carried away by,” Eustice said.
“I don’t think there were warning shots, there was a gunnery exercise that was taking place, and it’s not uncommon for the Russians to do this in this area. The incident is not particularly abnormal in that sense,” he added.
Russia seized and annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, and considers areas around its coast to be Russian waters. Western countries deem the Crimea to be part of Ukraine and reject Russia’s claim to the seas around it.
The BBC released footage from the ship showing a Russian officer warning that he would shoot if the vessel did not change course. Russia released footage filmed from a Russian SU-24 bomber flying close to the Defender.
Russia said the British ship had ventured as far as 3km into Russian waters near Cape Fiolent, a landmark on Crimea’s southern coast near the port of Sevastopol, headquarters of the Russian Navy’s Black Sea fleet.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion