Russia warned Britain and therefore the us on Friday against “tempting fate” by sending warships to the Black Sea , and said it might defend its borders using all possible means including military unit .
In a statement broadcast on state television, the Defence Ministry said it had been ill-advised for British and U.S. vessels to approach the coast of Crimea, a peninsula Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
“We turn the Pentagon and therefore the British navy, which are sending their warships into the Black Sea , to not tempt fate vainly ,” Major General Igor Konashenkov, the ministry’s spokesperson, said.
HMS Defender, a British destroyer that sailed through waters off Crimea on Wednesday, was “not quite a target” for the Black Sea fleet’s defences, he said.
Russia considers Crimea a part of its territory, but the peninsula is internationally recognised as a part of Ukraine.
Russia said on Wednesday it had fired warning shots and dropped bombs within the path of a British warship to chase it out of Black Sea waters off the coast of Crimea.
Britain rejected Russia’s account of the incident. It said it believed any shots fired were a pre-announced Russian “gunnery exercise”, which no bombs had been dropped.
It confirmed HMS Defender had sailed through what it said were waters belonging to Ukraine.
The British embassy in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgian the South Caucasus, wrote on Twitter on Friday that HMS Defender was set to arrive within the port city of Batumi on the eastern coast of the Black Sea . read more
Deputy secretary of state Sergei Ryabkov said separately that Washington and London were sowing strife by failing to simply accept Crimea was a part of Russia, which Russia was able to defend its borders using all means, including military unit .
Moscow warned Britain on Thursday that it might bomb British naval vessels within the Black Sea if what it called provocative actions by British navy were repeated off the Crimean coast. read more
Russia’s Defence Ministry said separately on Friday that it had been beginning joint navy and air force exercises within the eastern Mediterranean, where Moscow operates an air station on Syria’s coast.