DISINFO: HMS Defender deliberately entered Russian territorial waters violating Russia’s laws
SUMMARY
HMS Defender deliberately entered Russian territorial waters in violation of Russia's laws. The British wanted to demonstrate that these are Ukrainian waters, but this does not correspond to the facts.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the June 2021 HMS Defender warship incident and about the current status of Crimea.
On 23 June 2021, the British warship HMS Defender was in transit on a commonly followed route in the Black Sea from the port of Odesa in Ukraine to Georgia, where the destroyer was due to dock. Russia claimed that the transit of the British ship 12 miles off the Crimean coast was deliberate trespassing of its territorial waters.
It is not true that the British ship trespassed into Russian territorial waters. The allegation that the HMS entered into Russian territorial waters is a manipulation on the issue of Crimea. The HMS Defender transited 12 miles offshore in the waters of Crimea, a territory militarily occupied and forcibly annexed by Russia in 2014 in a referendum that was not recognised by the UN, nor the EU, or the UK, or any international body.
Russia has described the transit through Ukrainian waters as a violation of its territorial waters and sovereign laws, but the passage of the HMS Defender through the waters off Cape Fiolent on the Southern tip of Crimea is allowed under international law: Russia's accusation is based on the assumption that its self-asserted right over Crimean territory is recognised, but neither Ukraine nor the international community currently recognises Crimea as Russian territory.
Russia's illegitimate control over the territories of the Crimean peninsula has manifestly extended to the Kerch Strait and the Sea of Azov, where military incidents have occurred.
Read similar cases claiming that British warship HMS Defender deliberately entered Russian territorial waters, that UK ship HMS Defender violated Russian territorial waters in Crimea and that following the results of the referendum, Crimea - peacefully and legitimately - became part of Russia.