The British\u00a0Navy has been jolted by\u00a0a Russian naval flotilla\u00a0that entered the English Channel to undertake a series of exercises.<\/p>\n
The British have described the flotilla as a “provocation”, although foreign vessels regularly pass through.<\/p>\n
While the four ships \u2013 led by an anti-submarine vessel called the Severomorsk – are not breaking any rules, naval sources told The Telegraph they were monitored and escorted through the North Sea and into the Channel by a British patrol vessel.<\/p>\n
An MoD spokesman said on Friday: “We are aware that four Russian naval ships have passed through the Dover Strait from the North Sea into the English Channel, which all ships have the right to do under international law.<\/p>\n
“The ships were escorted by the Royal Navy warship HMS Tyne as part of her UK maritime security role and have now left UK waters.”<\/p>\n
The ships are expected to pass through the Channel and head south to relieve other Russian vessels in the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s Northern Fleet said the flotilla\u00a0had passed through the Strait of Dover and anchored\u00a0in the Seine Bay off Normandy to wait off a\u00a0storm.<\/p>\n
“While it is anchored the crew are undertaking a series of exercises on how to tackle infiltrating submarine forces and are training on survival techniques in the case of flooding or fire,” the fleet said in a statement, according to the state-run news agency, RIA Novosti.<\/p>\n
The flotilla, which the British press ominously described as a “convoy” and “squadron” includes the Alexander Otrakovsky, an amphibious ship, a tanker and a tug.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, the Northern Fleet said that the ships had left their base in the Arctic port of Severomorsk on November 20.\u00a0On its way towards Britain, the squadron carried out an exercise to simulate repelling an air attack after it was circled by NATO planes, the fleet added.<\/p>\n
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The British\u00a0Navy has been jolted by\u00a0a Russian naval flotilla\u00a0that entered the English Channel to undertake a series of exercises. The British have described the flotilla as a “provocation”, although foreign vessels regularly pass through. While the four ships \u2013 led by an anti-submarine vessel called the Severomorsk – are not breaking any rules, naval sources … Continue reading “British Navy jolted by Russian flotilla”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,3],"tags":[10630,534,4216,10631,66,1946],"class_list":["post-17040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-news","tag-channel","tag-france","tag-navy","tag-royal-navy","tag-russia","tag-uk"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17040"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17041,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17040\/revisions\/17041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}