MOSCOW, June 24. /TASS/. Russia hopes that the West will learn from the incident with the British destroyer HMS Defender in the Black Sea, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told reporters on Thursday.
"I hope that they will learn from this. In this case, we demonstrated with our military and political actions that we will ensure our interests 100%, there can be no doubt about that," the deputy minister said.
"In the military sphere, all decisions should be weighed. I am sure that yesterday’s incident will be the subject of professional inquiries," the diplomat noted.
"If we talk about our general approach to such incidents, our position is well known. We offered all NATO states to join the talks on improving the existing agreements on avoiding or preventing dangerous incidents, including those of an accidental nature, at sea, in the air, or in contact zones in general," Grushko concluded.
On June 23, the Russian Defense Ministry said that the Black Sea Fleet, acting in cooperation with the border guard force of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), stopped a violation of the state border by the destroyer HMS Defender off Crimea's Cape Fiolent. The destroyer ventured three kilometers into Russia's territorial waters. A border guard patrol ship fired warning shots and a Sukhoi-24M bomber dropped bombs ahead of the destroyer. After that, the HMS Defender left Russia's territorial waters.
The Russian defense ministry later described the British ship's actions as a gross violation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and urged the British side to investigate the crew's actions.
For its part, the UK Ministry of Defense claims that the destroyer was passing peacefully through Ukraine’s territorial waters. The ministry stated that Russian vessels, which were taking part in training exercises, shadowed the passage of HMS Defender, and no warning shots were fired.