Russia warship fires warning shot at British couple – The Latest

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1:11This is a kind of accident or an incident waiting to happen. Retired couple, I think on a day out, shots were fired. And at that point, they suddenly realised that they'd had a major problem. Russia's really stepped up its presence over the last few months. They have their transponders off. And if you get too close, you know, they won't play nicely, certainly reckless behaviour. Warning shots should be your sort of, you know, your last option. But it comes at this time of kind of heightened tension between Britain and Russia.

1:34Nosheen Iqbal:From the Guardians today in Focus, this is The Latest with me, Noshin Iqbal.

1:42Nosheen Iqbal:Dan Sabah, you're the Guardians' Defence and Security Editor. On Tuesday, we saw quite an interesting incident at sea. a Russian warship firing warning shots within a few hundred metres of a British yacht with quite an unlikely presence on board, a retired couple who were out on the holidays, I think. Now, the Russians claim the yacht was on a dangerous course towards their ship and that they made several attempts to contact it. The couple say that this didn't happen. What on earth is going on? Well, it's an extraordinary story, isn't it? You know, you've got to, you know, as you say, it's a retired couple.

2:19I think on a day out, they were taking their yacht from Limington on the south coast down to Cherbourg. And what I don't think they're expected to find it because Russian warships don't turn their transponders there, you know, effectively there. If you like their ship radar on. It's a little bit unclear precisely what happened. There's a little bit of claim and counterclaim. But it does look like there was some kind of they sailed very close to this Russian warship, too close as far as the Russians concerned. And I don't think the Russians like it. These warships, they don't like it when the captives don't like it when you get within about 500 meters of these boats.

2:52And it looks like there were some kind of warnings, perhaps a tannoy. Some of the Russians say there were flares. I don't think the retired couple say they saw any flares being fired. But anyway, what was clear, because you can't mistake this sort of thing, was shots were fired from by sailors on the boat. You know, small arms, not the ship's big gun, I think, as far as we can tell. And at that point, they suddenly realized that they'd had a major problem. and they sort of skedaddled, changed course. And actually, if you look on the sort of radar tracks afterwards, their yacht is called the Bright Future, sort of sails in this rather crazy S-bend between Limington and Cherbourg, where this Russian warship was somewhere in between.

3:28Nosheen Iqbal:I mean, it won't surprise you that I'm not a naval expert, but even to me, it sounds quite unlikely or unusual that that warship was there in the first place, because it is, I mean, it's massive, right? It's about 125 metres long. It's got a helipad on there. It's got a big naval gun. I mean, what was it doing there? And 10 times longer than the yacht, I think, which is about 12 metres long. So, yeah, it's a big, hulking, brooding presence. I mean, this is not British territorial waters. These are international waters. It's not unusual for there to be warships from foreign countries, from Russia, in and around the UK.

4:02Having said that, Russia's really stepped up its presence over the last few months, and in particular, this particular frigate, the Admiral Gregorovich. And why is that? Because it's mostly been escorting the sort of Russian shadow fleet or Russian oil tankers from either the high north or from the Baltic through carrying laden with crude oil, escorting them through on their way to India or to China. you know, quick look on the map and you'll see that's the only, you know, these are the only viable routes. So this Russian warship has been a presence just off the coast of Britain, in the North Sea, in the Channel.

4:39It's been monitored by the British and the French for several months.

4:42Nosheen Iqbal:Okay. They've known about it and it's kind of almost expected it to be there. Well, in a way, this is a kind of accident or an incident waiting to happen. In other words, at some point, some more innocent, you know, in this case, you know, a yacht owned by a retired couple was going to come perhaps a bit too close to it. And the thing is that the Russians don't play the game the same way that the Royal Navy or other Western navies do. You know, they have their, you know, they have their transponders off. And if you get too close, you know, they won't play nicely. They might do something you don't quite expect.

5:13Nosheen Iqbal:Well, let's take the way this incident has been interpreted. You've got two different statements here. The Ministry of Defence say, well, it feels like they're playing down what happened. I mean, they effectively confirmed what the Russian Defence Ministry said. They called it an isolated incident. this morning the prime minister in contrast called it reckless and deeply concerning you know he felt for the couple on board which of these is it well i think it's i think actually it's both of those to be honest with you uh it's certainly reckless behavior by the russians because warning shots should be your sort of you know your last you know your last option if you're in a warship and you feel threatened by another vessel uh threatened by a yacht that's 10 times smaller well quite um But, you know, again, the Russians are very twitchy and you never quite, you know, you know, sometimes you never quite know what's going on.

5:58So you would expect them, the Russians, to behave in a much more calm and measured way and send out many more warnings through radio, through tan eyes, through signals, through flares, whatever. In this case, they went sort of straight to the highest level of escalation. I mean, neither the couple nor the Russians set out to kind of almost bump into each other that day. Whether there was actually a collision course or not isn't quite clear, I suspect. It wasn't quite the case, but the yacht was sailing uncomfortably close from the Russian perspective. Look, you know, the couple are experienced mariners, but how well informed are people?

6:30You know, you shouldn't get too close to a Russian warship. It sounds obvious as we're sitting chatting here.

6:34Nosheen Iqbal:Sounds like the first rule of taking a boat out onto the sea. Don't get close to the Russian warships. But the reality is, again, if you don't know if it's transponders or off and you don't quite know what you're dealing with, but you're seeing something in the distance, you might be surprised. But it comes at this time of kind of heightened tension between Britain and Russia. Well, let's talk about that because, you know, this incident, this isolated incident, as we're understanding it, comes days after a Russian oil tanker was seized by the British and also comes off the back of a key of Starmer announcing yesterday further sanctions on Russian assets.

7:05Nosheen Iqbal:So one might assume the Russians are quite annoyed. And so when it comes to the relationship between the two, what does that currently look like? Well, we all know the wider context is, you know, a long history of tension between Britain and Russia made a lot worse by the Russian full scale invasion of Ukraine. And, you know, Britain, meanwhile, supporting Ukraine. And so, you know, that's one of the backdrops. Britain's been involved with sort of hitting Russia with a string of economic sanctions alongside the EU and the US, although that was more so in the Biden era. and you know but some of this tension is being played out you know on the high seas uh you know around us why because russia needs to export oil and so it feels like there was always going to be a point where something was going to happen and in a way it's probably better that this happened something a bit comic and a bit unfortunate than something you know perhaps more serious or more direct conflict between a british warship and a russian warship i mean i guess what i was asking in a very roundabout way is that are those two things remotely linked you know this this incident at sea and how Russian assets are being treated.

8:09So look, what you've seen over the last few months is a sort of more concerted effort by European countries to try and clamp down on Russian oil exports that's principal means of funding its war in Ukraine and doing that by seizing some of these sort of stateless or poorly maintained Russian tankers. The French have done it, the Swedes have done it, the Brits have helped out. But this, what we saw last week, seizures of this tank of Smirtles was the first time the British had led a seizure themselves. And so, yeah, I mean, in a way, you know, the Russians have been hit with the caesias for some time.

8:42But what was different or, again, what got everyone thinking was could this in the first instance, could this instance be linked to what happened last week because it was the first time the Brits had acted?

8:52Nosheen Iqbal:And? Well, I mean, I think not quite because it's such a random set of events. Again, look, it's a couple, you know, as we've described, right, it's a couple on a boat, you know, bumping in, if you will, bumping into a Russian warship. You can see the ITV drama playing out right now in your head. Exactly so. So in that sense, no. But are the Brits worried about a possible, you know, Russian retaliation, a seizure of British merchant shipping in another location? What would that look like? Yes, they are. So if the Russians did choose to retaliate, what would the British response potentially be?

9:28Nosheen Iqbal:I mean, given that we've had all those warnings from John Healy, who dramatically resigned as Defence Secretary, how would the Brits respond? Well, I think let's, you know, let's not get ahead of ourselves. And I think you shouldn't, you know, start predicting an escalation where there may not be one. Let's see what if, you know, if Russia does anything at all. And then if it does, you know, I think the context will be very important. All I'm trying to say is, again, you know, we're in the situation of high intentions. And although we shouldn't see what happened in the channel on this extraordinary incident, the channel on Thursdays, directly part of it sits within that context.

10:00And ultimately, you know, perhaps that's why the Russians were a little bit trigger happy because they were twitchy too.

10:05Nosheen Iqbal:Is the British Navy equipped? Is the military equipped? Are we ready? Well, yes, in the sense that the Gregorovism is always shadowed by a British offshore patrol vessel. But there are a lot of questions about how much money and resources the Navy has had. and certainly there was a big struggle to send a single warship HMS Dragon to Cyprus. The conflict, the war in the Middle East took three weeks for Britain to do that. So British resources are stretched. There's very much, there's perceived to be a need for more money and we just had this big political row, haven't we, where John Healy quit last week over defence funding.

10:38So maybe, you know, the Russians have made some of the argument that John Healy wanted to make for him. This is a reminder that there is, you know, There's a reminder of these heightened tensions, what's going on in international waters, and the kind of need to maintain and invest in the British military. And that is, you know, so it's an interesting moment.

10:58Nosheen Iqbal:Dan, thank you for making sense of that. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. Thanks again to Defence and Security Editor Dan Sabah. Before we go, I just want to tell you that the Guardian's award-winning Football Weekly Podcast has turned into World Cup Daily. Join Max Rushton, Barry Glendening and the team as they discuss every big match and every big moment every day of the World Cup Listen now wherever you get this podcast or watch on YouTube Thanks for listening to this episode of The Latest Today in Focus will be back with you tomorrow morning and we'll be back tomorrow evening This episode was produced by Annie Levespa The senior producer is Ryan Ramgobin and the lead producer is Zoe Hitch The presenter was me, Noshi Nikbar

11:41Nosheen Iqbal:This is The Guardian.