Russia says it is willing to attack ships that violate its waters after an incident where they fired warning shots at an UK Destroyer

 

The HMS Defender. Royal Navy photo.

Russia says it is willing to attack ships that violate its territorial waters after an incident where they fired warning shots at an UK Destroyer. Fox News. The statement happens after the HMS Defender entered Russian claimed waters near Crimea. Russia says it fired warning shots from a ship and dropped bombs in the path of the ship. However, the bombs were dropped very far away from the Defender which was not at risk. The UK had denied these reports. Russia considers the UK to have provoked them into action, while the UK refuses to recognize that Russia has control of Crimea  

My Comment:

Someone embarrassing for the United Kingdom. This was a deliberate provocation by them and it did not work out well for them. The UK had weapons fired in their vicinity and did not prove that they had the right to be in the area they were in. 

It's not clear if weapons were actually used though. With conflicting reports it comes down to who you trust more and which option makes more sense. I can't really think of a reason why the Russians would lie about this issue though as it kind of eliminates the point of using weapons here. The UK has every reason to lie as they don't want to appear like they were pushed away by the Russians. 

I've gone against the mainstream for a long time now when it comes to Crimea. Regardless of what you think about it it's pretty obvious that the Russians control the area and won't give it up anytime soon. It's de facto Russian territory and with that being the case I think they have a right to defend it. 

As for the United Kingdom, this was a pretty clear diplomatic insult to the Russians. They are telling them that they don't recognize their claims on Crimea even though there is nothing the United Kingdom could do to give the territory to Ukraine. Given the circumstances I don't really have a problem with what the Russians did here. 

Not that the Russians can complain too much. They regularly test the borders of other countries, including the United States. Their actions means they have no reason to try and take the high ground. If they weren't constantly sending bombers to test other countries defenses then they could complain.  

Do I take their claims that they would fire on ships directly seriously? Probably not. These provocations are annoying to them but I don't think they would want to risk a conflict over territory violations. Blowing up a UK Destroyer would be a major escalation and not one they want to do. 

Of course even if the Russians did fire on a UK ship I don't think it would lead to war. After all Turkey shot down a Russian jet and it didn't lead to a war. Blowing up a destroyer would be more serious but I think in the end cooler heads would prevail. 

But I don't think anything will happen. I don't think the UK will risk doing this again and I am hoping that things will eventually cool down. I don't think it was a wise move and I hope that they won't try something dumb like this again.