The warning shots came without radio contact, Jane Kelvey said – just five blasts from the Russian warship’s horn, then another five, then the crack of small arms fire in the air above their 40ft yacht. “That wasn’t aimed at us – it was warning fire that went up in the air, we believe,” she told BBC Newsnight.
Jane, 69, and her husband Alan, 70, were sailing their British-flagged yacht Bright Future from Lymington to Cherbourg on Tuesday when they came into close contact with the Admiral Grigorovich, a 409ft Russian frigate, about 23 miles off the Isle of Wight in international waters.
“British couple describe warning shots fired by Russian warship in Channel, urging calm to avoid escalation.”
They had turned two degrees to port after the first horn blasts, Jane said, to show they had seen the warship. Then the second set of blasts was followed by four or five gunshots. “You can tell when a gun’s been fired. You know that noise,” she told the Guardian, describing the sound as “a whipcrack”. After the shots, they steered their yacht 90 degrees to port using the motor.
The retired couple from Buckinghamshire are now calling for calm. “We don’t want world war three to start because of this,” Jane told the Guardian. “Had it just been the five blasts on their horn, we wouldn’t have reported it. It was just the gunfire that was a little bit surprising.”
Russia’s defence ministry said the yacht was on a “dangerous approach” and that its crew had made several attempts to contact Bright Future via radio, launched warning flares and fired warning shots after the yacht continued to within 150 metres. The crew acted in “strict accordance with international shipping regulations”, the ministry said.
But Jane told the i Paper they had received no radio contact before the shots, and she disputed the Russian account. “We were in no danger. We were not about to collide with them,” she said. The yacht was using an automatic identification system and was “definitely not on a collision course”, she added.
The Ministry of Defence said the Russian vessel was drifting and fired warning shots to prevent a possible collision after attempting to contact the yacht. “These were not aimed at the vessel,” an MoD spokesperson said.
Sir Keir Starmer, speaking from the G7 summit on Wednesday, described the incident as “deeply concerning and reckless”. He said the couple must have felt “terrified”. The MoD’s assessment that the Russian ship was drifting was a key context, he added.
The prime minister also warned that the UK was dealing with proxy attacks from Russia “every single day”, though he said the warning-shots incident should be seen separately from other recent events – including the conviction of two men for an arson attack on his house and the Royal Marine Commando interception of a Russian shadow fleet tanker in the Channel on Sunday.
Jane Kelvey said she does not want the incident to put off other British sailors. “We all cross the Channel so often, it doesn’t need to be made into a big incident.”