Less than a fortnight ago, Sir Keir Starmer sought to signal that the British government was getting tough on Putin by authorising the Royal Navy to stop, search and if necessary impound so-called ‘shadow fleet’ vessels carrying Russian oil through the English Channel. On Wednesday, the Russian navy brazenly ignored Starmer and sent a frigate, the Admiral Grigorovich, to escort a pair of tankers through the Dover Straits. The British response was to send a Royal Fleet Auxiliary tanker to trail the Russian trio as they passed the white cliffs unmolested. To complete the humiliation, the Daily Telegraph’s acting defence editor Tom Cotterill filmed the whole incident from a hired boat hove-to in mid-Channel. 

The Ministry of Defence (MoD), activating its highest spin mode, called a press conference to push back against the Telegraph’s ‘Putin mocks Starmer with warship in Channel’ narrative. Defence Secretary John Healey made the extraordinary announcement that in recent weeks a British warship and aircraft tracked and monitored Russian submarines attempting to survey vital undersea infrastructure in the North Atlantic. According to Healey, the British intervention ensured the Russians abandoned their mission. ‘I’m making this statement to call out this Russian activity,’ Healey warned:

And to President Putin, I say: ‘We see you. We see your activity over our cables and our pipelines, and you should know that any attempt to damage them will not be tolerated and will have serious consequences’.

And to President Putin, I say: ‘We see you. We see your activity over our cables and our pipelines, and you should know that any attempt to damage them will not be tolerated and will have serious........

© The Spectator