The British military is investigating reports that a Russian warship fired warning shots at a U.K.-registered yacht within the English Channel on Tuesday.
The Defense Ministry said it was investigating an “incident” after the yacht said it was fired on by a Russian navy vessel about 500 yards (460 meters) away. It happened about 20 miles (about 30 kilometers) south of the Isle of Wight, outside U.K. territorial waters.
There have been no reports of injuries or damage to the yacht.
The Russian government didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
British media reported that the Russian vessel is the frigate Admiral Grigorovich. Russian warships passing through the English Channel are routinely shadowed by the Royal Navy, and patrol vessel HMS Mersey was monitoring the Russian ship on the time of the reported incident.
The incident occurred two days after British commandos boarded and detained a sanctioned tanker within the Channel that’s suspected of being a part of the Russian “shadow fleet.” Officials are usually not linking the 2 events.
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The tanker’s captain, an Indian national charged with shipping Russian oil in violation of international sanctions over Moscow’s war on Ukraine, was ordered held in jail after appearing Tuesday in court.
The British military has had several close encounters with Russian vessels within the region and warned Moscow in November that it was able to cope with any incursion into its territory after the spy ship Yantar was detected on the sting of U.K. waters north of Scotland.
In April, Britain and Norway said that they had tracked a Russian attack sub and two spy submarines operating north of the U.K. for several weeks.
A Royal Navy frigate, aircraft and a whole bunch of personnel spent weeks following the Russian vessels and prevented them from carrying out “nefarious” activities against underwater infrastructure, then-Defense Secretary John Healey said.
He accused Moscow of using the distraction of the Iran war to ramp up malign activity against Europe.
Five years ago, Russia said considered one of its warships fired warning shots and a warplane dropped bombs within the Black Sea to force the British destroyer HMS Defender out of an area near Crimea that Moscow claimed as its territorial waters.
The U.K. denied that account and insisted its ship wasn’t fired upon. It was the primary time for the reason that Cold War that Moscow acknowledged using live ammunition to discourage a NATO warship, reflecting the growing risk of military incidents amid soaring tensions between Russia and the West. The incident occurred about six months before Russia invaded Ukraine.
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