Russian frigate fires warning shots at British yacht in Channel – reports (www.theguardian.com)
from metermatic26@lemmy.world to world@lemmy.world on 16 Jun 15:54
https://lemmy.world/post/48248251

Ministry of Defence investigates after shots apparently fired within 500 metres of vessel near Isle of Wight

#world

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cecilkorik@lemmy.ca on 16 Jun 16:17 next collapse

Were they fishing?

Nautalax@lemmy.world on 16 Jun 16:20 next collapse

A couple of days ago the UK seized a shadow fleet tanker so I would assume that’s the reason for Russia to launch this provocation.

Don’t think this will rattle the UK at all when they could very easily delete this ship, but maybe it’s more of a warning to smaller countries without as robust of a navy to try to dissuade them from doing anything against the shadow fleet?

Edit: BBC says that it’s thought unrelated to the seizing. Says that the Russians were doing this shooting and sounding an alarm to tell the yacht to get out of its way while it was drifting towards them in foggy conditions. Also says that this was not in the UK’s territorial waters although it was near them and give a marker on the map.

HubertManne@piefed.social on 16 Jun 16:23 next collapse

I don’t get it. Did they fire into british territorial waters. If so kinda seems like they should have deleted the ship.

testaccount372920@piefed.zip on 16 Jun 16:48 next collapse

It was outside of territorial waters but probably inside the economic zone

HubertManne@piefed.social on 16 Jun 16:49 collapse

not the ship but where the ammunition landed. kinda sounds like they shot into the territorial waters.

Nautalax@lemmy.world on 16 Jun 17:37 collapse

I checked another article that says it’s thought not to be related and linked it above, also indicating that it was not in territorial waters.

Anyway, say it did happen in territorial waters, they would still have to make that determination of whether the cost is worth the benefit. It definitely sends a message to your people, partners and enemies that you’re taking your defense seriously which has benefits of its own, but escalation can also unsettle investors who may view the country as less safe than it was before which can ding the economy and stock market. Plus Russia would likely seek revenge through whatever non-military means it has available which may or may not hurt badly depending on how deep their bag of tricks goes for the situation in question.

For example, years ago Turkey famously blew up a Russian jet that intruded upon their territory, a pretty strong declaration of sovereignty. Since Turkey has a lot of economic ties with its Black Sea neighbor Russia, Russia was able to use those ties as leverage to inflict quite a lot of economic damage on Turkey in retaliation along with laying on diplomatic pressure. At the time many of Turkey’s partners were not happy with Turkey and more interested in smoothing over things with Russia so they provided Turkey little support, and Russia continued incursions in Turkish airspace. Since Turkey was kind of isolated anyway and ailing with those pains and tensions, they took a more Russia-accomodating policy to ease those burdens such as re-allowing Russian planes to fly over to Syria (until 2022 when the ban was reinstated) and doing the infamous S-400 deal. At the time Turkey probably regretted blowing up the plane for the headaches it brought on, although now many of the other countries in the area would probably look more favorably on what Turkey did than they did at the time.

So, whether it’s a good call to take the shot or not can depend on many things like if your neighborhood would back you up, what ties would the power making an incursion have that could be leveraged against you, are you in a sensitive political situation at home that may be aggravated with a worse economy or bolstered by looking strong against incursion, etc.

5715@feddit.org on 16 Jun 16:24 collapse

…which would prove Finland and Sweden right to join an alliance.

EatingOnions@lemmy.world on 16 Jun 16:23 collapse

More sabre rattling just to show how big of a cowards they are