But the British prime minister shies away from publicly acknowledging this
London. June 25. INTERFAX-The route of the passage of the British destroyer Defender near the Crimea was developed and proposed by British Defense Minister Ben Wallace, but this was opposed by the head of the British Foreign Ministry Dominic Raab, then the decision of the issue was transferred to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, The Daily Telegraph reported.
Raab " expressed concern about the plans of the Ministry of Defense, and "warned in advance that Moscow may try to use the Defender passage" to its advantage, the newspaper writes.
The ministers appealed to Downing Street for the decision to be made by the Prime Minister.
"The whole dispute was between Raab and Wallace, then they turned to the Prime Minister for a solution. On Monday, a decision was sent to the destroyer that it should carry out a peaceful passage through these waters, " The Daily Telegraph quotes the source as saying.
At the same time, the prime minister did not confirm on the eve that the decision on the passage of the destroyer was made by him personally.
"This is a matter for the Ministry of Defense, but if you want to know my opinion, I think it was absolutely appropriate to use international waters," he told reporters.
Johnson added :" It was absolutely right that we should have demonstrated the legality of freedom of navigation in the way that we did by choosing the shortest route between two points."
The prime minister's representative also refused to answer the question whether Johnson personally authorized the mission, telling reporters: "I'm not going to participate in making operational military decisions."
