As new details emerge of drone attack in Crimea Moscow has summoned the UK envoy and cautioned London against training Ukrainian forces and participating in terorrist attack that make UK direct part of the conflict. A naval drone targeting the Russian base in Sevastopol was launched from a vessel moving through the grain corridor with help of British army, Russia said. Russia has summoned the British Ambassador to Moscow, Deborah Bronnert, over claims that the UK provided training to Ukrainian forces that attacked Russia’s Black Sea Fleet ships in Crimea last week.
The Russian Foreign Ministry presented the diplomat with a “steadfast protest” and warned her that London’s hostile actions “could lead to unpredictable and dangerous consequences,” according to a statement published on the ministry’s website on Thursday.
“If acts of aggression that risk turning [Britain] into a direct party in the conflict continue, the British side will solely bear the responsibility for their negative consequences and the increase in tensions between our countries,” the ministry said.
The move came after the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that British instructors led the training of Ukrainian troops who carried out aerial and seaborne drone attacks on Russian ships in Sevastopol, a port and naval base in Crimea, on Saturday. A minesweeper was damaged in the raid. The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that British personnel had been helping Ukraine train frogmen and underwater demolition experts in the Black Sea ports of Ochakov and Odessa. On Saturday, the British Defense Ministry denied the allegations.
A person familiar with the matter told RT on Thursday that a group of senior Ukrainian naval officers, including ship commanders and missile specialists, had completed a two-week training course at a UK base in September. While the course was officially designated as demining training, it focused on teaching Ukrainians how to use “modern British-made unmanned underwater vehicles,” the source said.
MOSCOW /TASS/. British specialists were deeply involved in the Kiev regime’s terrorist attack on Sevastopol, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel on Saturday.
“Criminal hypocrisy,” the diplomat noted. “While British specialists were participating directly in the Kiev regime’s terrorist attack against Sevastopol, British Ambassador [in Moscow Deborah Bronnert] was laying flowers at the Solovetsky Stone on the eve of the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repression.”
“The basic materials will be handed over as evidence to the British side and will also be shown to the general public,” she added.
Zakharova then said the evidence will be published for the world to see, following a blistering Saturday statement which alleged the Ukrainian army launched the drone attack “under the leadership of British specialists in the city of Ochakiv” in southern Ukraine.
On Saturday, Sevastopol came under the largest drone attack by the Ukrainian armed forces since the start of the special military operation. As Sevastopol Governor Mikhail Razvozhayev said, the Black Sea Fleet repelled the drone attack in Sevastopol Bay. He added that the Ukrainian armed forces were targeting military facilities of the Black Sea Fleet.
The Russian Defense Ministry said that the Kiev regime carried out a terrorist attack on the warships of the Black Sea Fleet and civilian vessels in Sevastopol, using nine drones and seven marine autonomous surface vehicles. The ministry pointed out that the attacked ships are employed to provide security of the grain corridor, as part of the international initiative on exports of agricultural goods from Ukrainian ports, TASS reports
Those behind a major drone attack on the Russian naval base in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol made active use of a UN-brokered Black Sea grain corridor, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement after studying the wreckage of the unmanned combat vehicles.
The ministry’s specialists retrieved the navigational modules of the drones destroyed by the Russian warships and naval aviation, the statement said, adding that the Canadian-made devices stored data on the vehicles’ path to their target.
Most of them were launched from the Ukrainian Black Sea coast, not far from the port city of Odessa, the Russian military said. “The naval drones were then moving within the security zone of the grain corridor before changing course and heading towards the Russian naval base in Sevastopol,” the statement said.
Navigational data from at least one naval drone shows that it was launched from a sea location within the grain corridor security zone, the ministry added. According to Russian specialists, it might have been launched from a civilian vessel chartered by Ukraine or its “western backers” to transport Ukrainian agricultural produce.
Saturday’s assault, which involved nine aerial and seven naval drones, targeted vessels of the Russian Black Sea Fleet docked in Sevastopol. It was repelled, with just one ship suffering minor damage, according to the ministry.
According to Moscow, the Russian ships that were targeted by the Ukrainian drones had been involved in providing security for the “grain corridor,” which was set up to allow exports of Ukrainian food products through the Black Sea as part of a deal negotiated in Istanbul between Moscow and Kiev with UN and Turkish mediation this summer.
The attack prompted Russia to indefinitely suspend its participation in the deal, a move that has sparked an angry reaction from the US. Russia blamed Kiev for the attack, which it claimed was “carried out under the supervision of British experts.”
Kiev has been reluctant to claim responsibility for the assault. Andrey Yermak, the head of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s office, took to Telegram to accuse Russia of “making up terrorist acts at its facilities.” On Sunday, the New York Times reported that it was Ukrainian forces that launched Saturday’s attack, citing an unnamed Ukrainian official RT reports.
Russia Accuses British Navy Of Nord Stream Terrorist Attack
Russia’s defense ministry on Saturday issued a statement charging that the British Navy blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines last month, in what marks the first formal and direct accusation leveled against the UK over the major incident which put Europe’s energy supplies in doubt.
“According to available information, representatives of this unit of the British Navy took part in the planning, provision and implementation of a terrorist attack in the Baltic Sea on September 26 this year – blowing up the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines,” the ministry said, though without specifying any evidence.
The Kremlin earlier in a more broad accusation pointed the finger at NATO countries, including Britain, saying that NATO forces had conducted military exercises around the exact location the undersea explosions occurred. The accusation follows a Russian Foreign Ministry claim that NATO conducted a military exercise during the summer, close to the location where the undersea explosions occurred.
“In July, there were NATO drills with the use of deep-sea equipment in the area of the island of Bornholm,” a foreign ministry briefing said days after the Sept.26 blasts. Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the region “was crammed with NATO infrastructure” at the time of the sabotage attack.
In follow-up during his annexation of the four Ukrainian territories speech on Sept.30, President Putin mounted this attack on the West:
Putin claimed that the “Anglo-Saxons” in the West have turned from sanctions on Russia to “terror attacks,” sabotaging the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in what he described as an attempt to “destroy the European energy infrastructure.”
He added that “those who profit from it have done it,” without naming a specific country.
One thing that both Russia and the West agree on is that it was a deliberate act, and no mere accident. For example, soon following the incident European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen slammed it as sabotage while warning that “deliberate disruption of the European energy infrastructure is unacceptable and will lead to the strongest possible response.”
Putin: “Gas pipeline systems were blown up-they are not only ours, they are pan-European, there are 5 European companies represented in Nord Stream 1….Everyone is silent, as if it should be so. And they still have enough impudence to say that maybe Russia blew it up?”
Putin: “Gas pipeline systems were blown up-they are not only ours, they are pan-European, there are 5 European companies represented in Nord Stream 1….Everyone is silent, as if it should be so. And they still have enough impudence to say that maybe Russia blew it up?” pic.twitter.com/xHjG3Cqqik
— The Convo Couch (@theconvocouch) October 28, 2022
Russia has questioned why it would have to sabotage its own pipelines, instead of just turning off the gas if it saw fit.
Sweden’s Armed Forces have throughout this past week been at the site investigating, and have confirmed that powerful detonations caused the extensive damage to the pipelines, which triggered gas leaks at for locations, with Sweden banning publishing of the results of its investigation. Sweden Will Not Share Its Findings & Germany Also Refuses To Publish Its Findings On Nord Stream Terrorist Attacks! Why?
Read More: Why NATO Attacked Crimea (hint, the G20 Summit)
Tucker Carlson: Joe Biden And US Behind Terrorist Attacks On Nord Stream Pipelines
Sweden Will Not Share Its Findings & Germany Also Refuses To Publish Its Findings On Nord Stream Terrorist Attacks! Why?
Sweden’s Vassal Government Ordered To Reject Joint Probe With Germany, Denmark, Russia Into Nord Stream Terrorist Attacks