President Putin Reveals Provocations In The Black Sea, There Are British Destroyers To US Reconnaissance Planes

President of Russia Vladimir Putin. (Wikimedia Commons/The Presidential Press and Information Office)

JAKARTA - The incident with the British guided-missile destroyer Defender off the Crimea coast is a clear provocation, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during his annual question and answer session on Wednesday 30 June.

It was said to be a provocation, because the incident was not alone, with President Putin mentioning the United States at the same time deploying its military aircraft.

"This is, of course, a provocation, which is very clear. What are these provocateurs trying to show and what goals are they trying to achieve? First of all, (the provocation) is comprehensive and staged not only by Britain but also by the United States of America," President Putin said as reported by TASS on Wednesday, June 30.

"Since a British warship entered our territorial waters in the afternoon, while early in the morning, at 07:30, a US strategic reconnaissance aircraft took off from a NATO airfield in Greece, from Crete, I believe receiving reports of that. We see and observe it clearly," continued President Putin.

The intrusion of British ships into Russian territorial waters in the Black Sea pursues reconnaissance purposes, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

"It is clear that the destroyer was infiltrated in pursuit of military objectives, trying to find out with the help of reconnaissance aircraft what countermeasures our armed forces would take against this kind of provocation, to see what facilities were activated, where they were, and how they worked. We did see that and know that, so we only disclose information that we deem appropriate," he said while 'apologizing' to the military for possibly revealing classified information.

Illustration of the British battleship HMS Defender. (Wikimedia Commons/L Phot Des Wade MOD)

President Putin also said he saw a political component to the incident, which took place shortly after he met US President Joe Biden in Geneva.

"The meeting in Geneva just took place, so why is this provocation necessary, what is its purpose?" asked President Putin, underscoring that (Western) society does not respect Crimea's choice to join the Russian Federation."

At the same time, President Putin played down the severity of the potential consequences of the incident.

"Even if we had sunk a British destroyer near the Crimea, it would be impossible for the world to be on the verge of a Third World War," President Putin said.

Russia's border conditions in the Black Sea Region heated up last week. The Russian Ministry of Defense reported on June 23 that the Black Sea Fleet together with border guards from the Federal Security Service (FSB) stopped the violation of the country's borders by the British Navy guided-missile destroyer HMS Defender (D36) off the coast of Fiolent Cape Crimea.

The British warship sailed three kilometers into Russian territorial waters. A Russian guard ship fired warning shots while a Su-24M bomber dropped a bomb in the path of the British warship to drive it out of Crimean waters.

In addition to the US strategic surveillance aircraft as mentioned by President Putin, Russia also 'expelled' the Dutch frigate HNLMS The Evertsen (F805) from the same territorial waters on June 24, the day after the HMS Defender incident.

Last weekend, Russia's Black Sea Fleet was again on alert, when the United States Navy (US) guided-missile destroyer USS (DDG-71) Ross entered the Black Sea region, Saturday, June 26.

The US Navy's Sixth Fleet announced that the US destroyer entered the Black Sea on Saturday to take part in the multinational military exercise Sea Breeze 2021.