A BRITISH WOMAN onboard a yacht in the English Channel which sailors on a Russian warship fired warning shots near to “prevent a possible collision” said the incident was “a bit scary”.
Jane Kelvey, 68, and her husband Alan, 70, were on their 40ft yacht, Bright Future, travelling from the south coast of England towards France when shots were fired several times from the Russian frigate Admiral Grigorovich.
“It was a bit scary,” Kelvey told The i Paper. “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?”
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said the Russian vessel fired warning shots after making attempts to contact the yacht, which was about 20 nautical miles south of the Isle of Wight, outside the UK’s territorial waters.
An MoD spokesperson said: “These (shots) were not aimed at the vessel and were an attempt to prevent a possible collision.”
The warship had been drifting rather than being manoeuvred under power, it is understood.
The location where the incident happened was off the Isle of Wight, close to where a seized Russian Shadow Fleet oil tanker is berthed and also a British navy and Royal Marine base which was involved in the capture.
Kelvey, who retired in 2023 alongside her husband, said the shots were “totally unnecessary”, adding: “We didn’t have any contact from them (Admiral Grigorovich) on our radio.”
Russian warships passing through the English Channel are routinely shadowed by the Royal Navy, with offshore patrol vessel HMS Mersey monitoring the Admiral Grigorovich at the time of the incident on Tuesday.
The British couple said they contacted the UK Coastguard before a boat from HMS Tyne, another patrol vessel, was sent to the yacht to gather details and check they were safe.
The MoD spokesperson added: “We assess that this is an isolated incident and not linked to the UK’s interception of the Smyrtos this weekend.”
A translation of a statement posted on the Telegram channel for the Russian defence ministry said the yacht had been on a “dangerous approach” and the warning shots were fired after attempting to draw the attention of the yacht’s crew through signal flares and sound signals.
It said the Russian sailors had acted “in strict accordance” with international shipping regulations.
The Kelveys insisted they were not on a collision course, and Mr Kelvey described the Russian statement as “just normal lies”.
Kelvey told BBC’s Newsnight: “It’s just not true. They’re blaming us, and as far as we’re concerned, we were blameless.”
No tracking singal
The 68-year-old said the Russian warship did not appear on the automatic identification system (AIS), a maritime tracking system.
“It wasn’t showing up on AIS,” she said. “Normally when you’re sailing across the Channel, if a convoy of warships goes past, you get a message on VHF (very high frequency radio) saying give a one nautical mile exclusion zone or something like that but there was nothing.
“They didn’t radio us, they could have seen us coming from miles off, because we were displaying our AIS. The first thing we knew was the five blasts (of a horn), we turned to port, followed by the next five blasts, and then the gunfire and so we just turned.”
“There were none of these flares like they say in their statement,” Kelvey said.
His wife added: “They didn’t send up any flares, they didn’t try to radio us, they weren’t, they didn’t look to us like they were adrift and we were definitely not on a collision course.”
The incident come just two days after the seizure of Russian tanker Smyrtos in the first such action by British forces – although the UK had previously helped allies targeting sanctioned tankers.
Martin Kelly, head of advisory at crisis management firm EOS Risk Group, said people should be “careful” about linking the two incidents.
He told the Press Association: “Warships, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from, are entitled to self-defence.”
He added: “If Russia was going to respond then they would do so against, probably, a commercial ship.”
Sidharth Kaushal, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) think tank, said: “While warning shots are not unheard of, they are a last resort when a vessel is behaving in a threatening way.
“There is no indication that the yacht in question had done anything to present a threat to the Russian frigate – though, of course, much is still unknown.
“It seems, since this is irregular behaviour, like the Russians are trying to indicate that the vessels they dispatch can do more than protect their own shipping and will also be a disruptive presence in and around the UK.
“This would seem to be a way of disincentivising further interdictions.”
The captain of the Smyrtos, which was carrying 98,000 tonnes of oil, appeared in court on Tuesday charged with breaching sanctions.
Indian national Ajay Pant, 38, was charged with directly or indirectly supplying or delivering by ship prohibited oil or oil products from Russia to a third country in June 2026, in contravention of Regulation 46Z9B of the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.
Separately on Tuesday the Irish Air Corps was involved in a surveillance operation off the north and west coast as two Russian Shadow Fleet vessels made their way south through Ireland’s Exclusive Economic Zone.
With reporting from Niall O’Connor.