MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd July, 2021) The UK's HMS Defender warship, which provoked a border incident in the Russian territorial waters off Crimea in early July, is the only remaining operational ship of its class in the Royal Navy, Defense News reported Thursday, citing defence procurement minister Jeremy Quin.
The UK Royal Navy has a total of six Type 45 destroyers, but four of them are currently unavailable due to being in various stages of maintenance or upgrade. Another warship, HMS Diamond, encountered technical problems earlier in the month while on deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. This leaves only HMS Defender capable of operations, the minister told the news outlet.
On June 23, the Russian Defense Ministry said that UK Navy's Defender destroyer entered Russia's territorial waters near Cape Fiolent in Crimea. Russia's Black Sea Fleet and the border security forces had to fire warning shots to divert the destroyer.
For its part, the UK Defense Ministry said the destroyer was en route from Ukraine's Odesa to Georgia, and there were no warning shots at all. According to the footage published by the Russian security service FSB, the ship ignored warnings about the use of weapons and only left the waters near Crimea after warning shots.
The Kremlin called the incident a provocation plotted from overseas to test possible soft spots in Russia's response system.
