Russian warship opens fire near English coast

The Russian frigate Neustrashimy has conducted a live-fire gunnery exercise off the south coast of England while under the watch of the Royal Navy, according to the BBC, with the warship around 40 nautical miles from Portsmouth when she informed shadowing patrol vessel HMS Tyne of her intention to open fire.

A Ministry of Defence spokesperson confirmed the Royal Navy was observing the frigate on Monday, as reported by Jonathan Beale of the BBC here, with the Russians recommending the British vessel move to a safer distance before the exercise, which lasted around 30 minutes, and a French aircraft making radio contact with the frigate to clarify what she would be doing.

Defence Minister Luke Pollard said:

“Earlier today, a Russian naval vessel conducted a brief live-fire weapons exercise in international waters, approximately 40 nautical miles south of Plymouth.

Standard maritime safety procedures were followed: prior to firing, the Russian ship notified HMS Tyne of its intention and requested that she reposition to a safe distance, which HMS Tyne did. The exercise lasted 30 minutes.

HMS Tyne monitored the exercise throughout and the Royal Navy continues to track the vessel’s movements closely.

I know seeing activity like this close to our coastline can cause concern, but I want to reassure residents across Plymouth that our Armed Forces remain vigilant, professional, and fully prepared to safeguard UK national security at all times.”

Warships are entitled to conduct such exercises in international waters, and the notification to nearby shipping and shadowing units follows normal practice.

The Neustrashimy is a recent arrival on station, having been seen east of Clacton-on-Sea, not far from Felixstowe, on 17 July, where she appeared to be taking on fuel and stores from a Russian supply ship, according to earlier reporting by Sky News. Her appearance followed the departure of the frigate Admiral Grigorovich, observed returning towards Kaliningrad on 16 July after a lengthy stint around the Channel during which she at times appeared to drift, possibly to conserve fuel, and fired warning shots at a private boat she judged to have approached too closely. Russian warships have maintained a near-continuous presence around the Channel for months, escorting tankers and other strategic vessels, and the Royal Navy reported last month that it had kept an unbroken watch on Russian frigates and their consorts in UK waters for nearly three months.

The Neustrashimy herself is a ship with a long and troubled history. Lead ship of Project 11540, a class designed in the twilight of the Soviet Union as a successor to the mass-produced Krivak-class patrol ships, she was laid down at the Yantar shipyard in Kaliningrad in 1987, launched in 1988 and commissioned into the Baltic Fleet in 1993, one of only two of the class completed after the Soviet collapse gutted the programme, with sister ship Yaroslav Mudry finished years late and the third hull scrapped incomplete on the slipway. Displacing around 4,400 tonnes full load and 129 metres in length, she carries a 100mm gun, Kinzhal surface-to-air missiles, Kortik close-in weapon systems, torpedo tubes and anti-submarine rockets, with a hangar for a Ka-27 helicopter, and was designed principally as an anti-submarine escort. Her service has been punctuated by lengthy absences, including a counter-piracy deployment off the Horn of Africa, a 2014 refit at Yantar that stretched years beyond schedule after a fire aboard in 2015 compounded the delays, and a return to Baltic Fleet duty towards the end of the decade, making the three-decade-old frigate one of the older combatants Russia now rotates through its Channel escort tasking.

Shadowing her falls to HMS Tyne, first of the Royal Navy’s River-class offshore patrol vessels and a ship with almost as many years of continuous service in home waters as her Russian counterpart has in the Baltic. Commissioned in 2003 and displacing around 1,700 tonnes, the Portsmouth-based ship was built for fishery protection and patrol duties, armed with a 20mm cannon and general-purpose machine guns rather than the missiles of her larger fleet-mates, but her economy, availability and endurance have made the Batch 1 Rivers the Navy’s workhorses for monitoring foreign warships through UK waters, a task Tyne and her sisters Severn and Mersey perform on constant rotation alongside HMS Trent and the other Batch 2 ships when home. Tyne alone has escorted dozens of Russian vessels through the Channel and North Sea over the past decade, from destroyers and frigates to submarines and intelligence-gathering ships, and only last week her crew hosted supporting staff at sea in recognition of the tempo those patrols demand of a ship’s company of around 40.

The exercise, as first reported by the BBC, fell on the same day as the change of government in London, with Sir Keir Starmer resigning as Prime Minister and Andy Burnham invited by the King to form a new administration.

It also follows a period in which the UK has hardened its approach to the Russian shadow fleet, including the stopping and seizure of a tanker the Government said was stateless, with the vessel’s captain ordered to stand trial later this year over alleged sanctions violations involving Russian oil.