MOSCOW, June 24/ Radio Sputnik. The captain of the British destroyer Defender, Vincent Owen, confirmed to the Daily Mail that a Russian coast guard vessel opened warning fire during an incident in the Black Sea that occurred off the coast of Crimea.
On the eve of the Russian Defense Ministry said that the destroyer of the British Navy Defender crossed the state border near the Crimea and entered the Russian waters for three kilometers near Cape Fiolent.
The foreign ship left Russian waters after the border guard opened a warning fire, and the Su-24M made a "warning bombing" on the Defender's course of movement.
In turn, the British Defense Ministry said that the destroyer was passing through the territorial waters of Ukraine, and no warning shots were fired.
The same version was announced on Thursday by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the United Kingdom Dominic Raab.
According to him, during the shooting incident, the life of the sailors was out of danger, since Defender was going at a speed of 30 knots, and the Russian vessels that stopped the violation of the maritime state border were moving at a speed of 21 knots.
Owen added that the Russian ships approached the destroyer at a distance of 100-200 yards (about 90-180 meters, - ed.). He called this development "unsafe and inappropriate for sailors."
In turn, the Daily Mail correspondent Mark Nikol, who witnessed the incident in the Black Sea, also confirmed the fact of a warning fire. According to him, only Russian sailors "know exactly who they were shooting at and in which direction."
At the same time, he admitted that, "given their irritation" with the fact of violating the Russian border at sea, the destroyer could be a target for destruction.
Earlier, Sputnik radio reported how the Kremlin reacted to the incident with the entry of a NATO warship into Russian territorial waters.
