A British couple whose yacht was fired upon by a Russian warship in the English Channel have claimed the Ministry of Defence is trying to 'shut the story down'.

Jane Kelvey, 68, and her husband Alan, 70, branded the government's version of events 'rubbish' - and insisted that visibility was not the issue.

The retired couple were sailing their yacht from Lymington to the French coast when they spotted the Russian vessel 500 metres away on Tuesday morning.

As they got closer, they heard five blasts on the horn from the Russian frigate Admiral Grigorovich - followed seconds later by gunfire.

They said the Russian ship fired up to five times into the water ahead of them.

British military sources played down the encounter as a 'nautical incident' that arose due to the foggy conditions, rather than aggressive behaviour by Russia.

But now, the couple has insisted they did nothing wrong - and accused the government of trying to downplay the incident.

They said: 'They’re trying to close the story down now, saying that it was foggy and they were shooting flares up. It’s rubbish.'

Speaking to The Telegraph in France, Mr Kelvey said: 'It’s inflammatory, isn’t it?', when asked why they were being blamed for the encounter.

On Wednesday, Sir Keir Starmer said the shots were 'reckless' but not 'sinister'.

He said: 'We were discussing it here at the G7 yesterday, so we’ve got to be on our guard, but the incident in the Channel... MoD assessment is that it was actually a drifting warship, rather than anything more sinister.'

Confronted with the couple's accusations, the MoD referred back to Starmer's statement, and has been approached for further comment.

Speaking to The i paper about their ordeal, Mrs Kelvey previously said: 'It was a bit scary. I crouched down. I didn’t think our safety was in danger. But it was certainly unusual. As we sailed away, we said to each other, "What the hell just happened?"'

She added: 'It was totally unnecessary. We didn’t have any contact from them [Admiral Grigorovich] on our radio.

'We weren’t moving towards them – we were at a safe distance. But we began pulling further away from them.' 

The couple have since revealed further details about the concerning incident, including that the warship did not show up on their Automatic Identification System (AIS), there was no flag identifying its nationality - and at no point did the crew attempt to radio them.

Speaking to BBC Newsnight, Jane said: 'As we got closer still we saw Cyrillic lettering along the side. We were about 400 or 500 metres off, it was on our starboard side, it was motionless. It was not adrift.

'As we approached, they gave out five blasts on their horn which means "have you seen us?"

Despite manoeuvring their yacht away from the warship, the couple were met with what they believe was 'a warning fire that went up in the air'.

When asked if they agree with Russian officials that they were to blame for the gunfire, the couple answered: 'Absolutely not'.

Jane added: 'It was completely unnecessary. They're blaming us, [but] as far as we are concerned we were blameless.'

She also related how following the 'surreal' incident Jane wanted to radio the coastguard for assistance.