Russian warship carried out firing exercise off Plymouth coast
Shadowed by a Royal Navy ship, a Russian warship conducted a live-fire gunnery exercise just 46 miles (74 km) south of Plymouth on Monday.
A Ministry of Defense (MoD) spokesman said the Royal Navy was monitoring the exercise and continued to “closely monitor the ship’s activities”.
According to the information given to the BBC, it was said that the Russian frigate Neustrashimy (Turkish: Dauntless) was also monitored by a French military aircraft and was asked to clarify its intentions by establishing radio contact with the warship.
The BBC was told that the Russian warship notified the Royal Navy Offshore Patrol Ship HMS Tyne of its intention to carry out gunnery activity before opening fire.
The Russian warship requested that HMS Tyne be repositioned to a safer distance, which she did. Russia’s live fire exercise in international waters lasted 30 minutes.
The incident will remind the new prime minister of increased Russian naval activity near British waters in recent months. UK defense sources did not comment on whether the incident was timed to coincide with the start of Andy Burnham’s premiership.
Royal Marine Commandos last month A Russian “shadow fleet” boarded an oil tanker in the English Channel in a six-hour operation that was the first of its kind by the UK armed forces.
Also in June, a British couple in international waters in the English Channel encountered a Russian warship named Admiral Grigorovich 37 miles off the Isle of Wight.
Frigate Jane and Alan Kelvey fired warning shots as they headed for their yacht It’s a “dangerous approach,” the Russian Defense Ministry said. But the couple said they were not on a “collision course.”
Russian warships regularly transit international waters in the Channel, which are separate from British and French territorial waters.
[BBC]
BBC Verify analyzed flight and ship tracking data on Monday showing the position of HMS Tyne and several British military aircraft operating in and around the Channel near Plymouth.
Flight data on ADS-B Exchange shows at least four Royal Air Force and Royal Navy aircraft, including two Eurofighter Typhoons, a Voyager aerial refueling tanker and a Super Lynx helicopter, were flying mostly over UK territorial waters off the Dorset coast.
A French military H160M Guépard helicopter also flew over the Channel in the afternoon. It is unclear whether this was the plane that made contact with the Russian warship.
Data from ship tracking service MarineTraffic shows that HMS Tyne began broadcasting its position about 40 miles off Plymouth at 13:57 BST on Monday. It remained in this position for approximately two hours before departing at 15:56 to return to Plymouth.
HMS Tyne has been tracking Neustrashimy since at least 16 July; Both ships were captured on a satellite image in the North Sea about 36 miles from the port of Felixstowe in Suffolk.
Additional reporting by Ella Kipling, Barbara Metzler, Thomas Spencer and Patrick Jackson
