MOSCOW (Dispatches) -A British warship that Russia says illegally entered its territorial waters near Crimea earlier this month did so to observe in detail how Russian forces would react, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.
Russia summoned the British ambassador in Moscow for a formal diplomatic scolding after the warship, HMS Defender, breached what the Kremlin says are its territorial waters.
“This was a provocation, of course,” Putin said during a live question and answer session broadcast by state television.
“It was obvious that the destroyer entered (the waters near Crimea) pursuing, first of all, military goals, trying to use a reconnaissance aircraft to discover how our forces would stop such provocations, to see what happens on our side, how things work and where everything is located.”
Putin said Russia - which said its forces made warning shots at the British destroyer and dropped bombs in its path - responded in such a way that would only give the other side the information that Moscow wanted them to have.
Putin also said he saw a political component in the incident, which took place shortly after he met United States President Joe Biden in Geneva.
“The meeting in Geneva had just happened, so why was this provocation needed, what was its goal? To underscore that those people do not respect Crimeans’ choice to join the Russian Federation.”
“This provocation was full-scale, it was carried out not only by the British but by the Americans too,” he said. Still, “even if we sank this ship, it is difficult to imagine that the world would stand on the verge of a third world war” that the West knows it couldn’t win, he said.
Russian Navy Sub Holds Drills Off Crimea
The crew of the Black Sea Fleet’s submarine Kolpino carried out comprehensive drills in its submerged position off Crimea as NATO warships entered the Black Sea, the Fleet’s press office reported on Wednesday.
“In the course of the integrated exercise, the submariners practiced the algorithms of operations to exercise control of the submarine upon its surfacing and submergence in the routine and emergency modes and diving to various depths with a maximum depth of over 200 meters,” the press office said in a statement, TASS reported.
The submarine’s crew also held an exercise for ship damage control, in which the seamen practiced measures at the seabed to eliminate a leak and prepare for the evacuation through a torpedo tube, the statement read.
As Russia’s National Defense Control Center reported earlier, the Russian Navy was keeping a close watch on the UK and Dutch guided missile ships that had entered the Black Sea. In particular, the UK Navy’s destroyer Defender and the Dutch frigate Evertsen sailed into the Black Sea on June 14. Before that, the US Navy’s guided missile destroyer Laboon entered the Black Sea.