Russia warns Britain: “Your sailors will get hurt”

Mikhail Popov, deputy secretary of Russia’s Security Council, has warned Britain not to send its warship into waters near Russian-annexed Crimea again.

The warning follows an incident last month when the Royal Navy vessel, HMS Defender, sailed into waters off Crimea. Westminster described the Black Sea deployment as a freedom of navigation exercise, but Moscow saw it as in incursion into Russia territory and despatched a patrol boat to fire warning shots towards the destroyer.

In an interview with the state Rossiiyskaya Gazeta newspaper, Popov said: “Similar actions will be thwarted with the harshest methods in future by Russia regardless of the violator’s state allegiance. We suggest our opponents think hard about whether it’s worth organizing such provocations given the capabilities of Russia’s armed forces.”

“It’s not the members of the British government who will be in the ships and vessels used for provocational ends,” he added.

“And it’s in that context that I want to ask a question of the same Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab – what will they say to the families of the British sailors who will get hurt in the name of such ‘great’ ideas?”