What the fuck is a Russian frigate doing in the Channel?
this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2026
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Escorting tankers of the russian shadow fleet
They probably should have changed course more than 2°
Wait is this the new cursed journey?
Kamchatka 2?
Didn't the Russian Navy shoot at British fishing boats believing they were Japanese war ships at one point
Like the Russian Navy has always been a fucked up stack of floating failures
Russian navy ended up taking out other Russian warships.
Yeah iirc they engaged several fishing fleets in the Atlantic (or seas coming off the Atlantic), thinking they were Japanese torpedo boats, and at best tied because while they did sink/damage some of the fishing boats, they also damaged several of their own ships.
It's quite possible the yacht was legitimately in the wrong, there's some absolutely boneheaded sailors out there.
A couple of days ago the UK seized a shadow fleet tanker so I would assume that’s the reason for Russia to launch this provocation.
Don’t think this will rattle the UK at all when they could very easily delete this ship, but maybe it’s more of a warning to smaller countries without as robust of a navy to try to dissuade them from doing anything against the shadow fleet?
Edit: BBC says that it’s thought unrelated to the seizing. Says that the Russians were doing this shooting and sounding an alarm to tell the yacht to get out of its way while it was drifting towards them in foggy conditions. Also says that this was not in the UK’s territorial waters although it was near them and give a marker on the map.
I don't get it. Did they fire into british territorial waters. If so kinda seems like they should have deleted the ship.
I checked another article that says it’s thought not to be related and linked it above, also indicating that it was not in territorial waters.
Anyway, say it did happen in territorial waters, they would still have to make that determination of whether the cost is worth the benefit. It definitely sends a message to your people, partners and enemies that you’re taking your defense seriously which has benefits of its own, but escalation can also unsettle investors who may view the country as less safe than it was before which can ding the economy and stock market. Plus Russia would likely seek revenge through whatever non-military means it has available which may or may not hurt badly depending on how deep their bag of tricks goes for the situation in question.
For example, years ago Turkey famously blew up a Russian jet that intruded upon their territory, a pretty strong declaration of sovereignty. Since Turkey has a lot of economic ties with its Black Sea neighbor Russia, Russia was able to use those ties as leverage to inflict quite a lot of economic damage on Turkey in retaliation along with laying on diplomatic pressure. At the time many of Turkey’s partners were not happy with Turkey and more interested in smoothing over things with Russia so they provided Turkey little support, and Russia continued incursions in Turkish airspace. Since Turkey was kind of isolated anyway and ailing with those pains and tensions, they took a more Russia-accomodating policy to ease those burdens such as re-allowing Russian planes to fly over to Syria (until 2022 when the ban was reinstated) and doing the infamous S-400 deal. At the time Turkey probably regretted blowing up the plane for the headaches it brought on, although now many of the other countries in the area would probably look more favorably on what Turkey did than they did at the time.
So, whether it’s a good call to take the shot or not can depend on many things like if your neighborhood would back you up, what ties would the power making an incursion have that could be leveraged against you, are you in a sensitive political situation at home that may be aggravated with a worse economy or bolstered by looking strong against incursion, etc.
yeah im not sure turkey is the best example. I mean if you otherwise a relatively rationally acting democracy it feels like you should not allow any military incursion into your actual territory as its just such a slippery slope.
I picked the Turkey example because it’s a relatively rare example of a country deciding to blow up a manned vehicle, along with the attending raft of consequences that probably shows why fewer countries opt for that course of action. But there have actually been a lot of incursions of jets and spy ships and such things into many NATO countries both before and after the war, to say nothing of drones. The drones are usually blown up because no one really cares that much since they don’t carry a live person. Manned incursions are often solved peacefully because the incentives usually fall on the politicians to not rock the boat and keep the status quo, but maybe with a diplomatic protest or more aid sent against a foe of that country.
It was outside of territorial waters but probably inside the economic zone
not the ship but where the ammunition landed. kinda sounds like they shot into the territorial waters.
Or it's for an internal Russian story to help keep the country from imploding since they have very little good news to spread around.
"Brave Russian frigate fires restrained warning shot on imperialist NATO yacht with evil intentions"
Or something
...which would prove Finland and Sweden right to join an alliance.
Well… not a supporter of Russia, but if you sail in collision course to a war ship, ignore all the communication attempts (radio and flares), then you should not be surprised to hear a warning shot.
Try to do the same with an US war ship, the outcome will be the same.
The couple took issue with the Russian version of events.
Jane added: “They didn’t send up any flares, they didn’t try to radio us, they didn’t look to us like they were adrift, we were definitely not on a collision course. We were going to miss them. It just wasn’t an incident until the gunfire started.”
According to the couple, it doesn't match up. I mean they could just be covering their asses, but Russia's also kind of known for being assholes of late.
In the couples news interview video she said that after the ship hooted 5 times they "altered course 2 degrees, so that they could see we made a deliberate change of course".
That might be a "miss-speak", but it's nowhere near a large enough deflection to let anyone know they have been seen.
If any warship honked at me half way across the channel I'd be turning directly away from them as quickly as possible, under sail or not.
A sailboat will have the right of way over a motor boat. What gives a war ship the right of way here? Guns?
This is not true. There is no such thing as “right of way” in international waters. It is based on a give-way and stand-on principle based on COLREG.
In this case, Rule 18 says that power driven vessels give way to sailing vessels. However, there are multiple exceptions. If the sailing boat was using a motor? Rule 18 is void. If the powered vessel is anchored, rule 18 is void.
So please do not spread misinformation of things, that have
- a clear rule catalog, and
- have vessels participating who do not give a fuck about international rules.
International waters? Didn't this happen in Brittain's EEZ?
To my understanding, this happened in non-territorial waters. But I have not verified myself, to be honest.
Yes, there are plenty of things we don't know and COLREG is quite complicated but I'm pretty sure COLREG doesn't simply give right of way to bots with guns. So them being on a collision course with a war ship doesn't really matter here, right?
If guns or not does not matter in international waters. So if the war ship was moving, and the sail boat was sailing, the war ship must give way to the small sail boat, this is absolutely correct.
But then again, those are international waters. And we all constantly read news about provoking. Russia, China, Japan, US and plenty more where not even media coverage is happening.
They just don’t care. The same way the US does not care about shooting at “drug traffickers” in international waters. And all other countries are watching.
Yeah, it's entirely possible the people on the yacht were below decks not paying attention.
I've heard that British were not so bad sailors, maybe it's time to sink some Russian rubbish, innit?
Spirit of the Kamchatka: smiles knowingly
More sabre rattling just to show how big of a cowards they are
Butterman: Did you say 'frig off'?
Angel: No, I didn't say anything actually.
Angel: There was a bit earlier on that you missed when I followed Dan the Shadow Tanker Bonker on Twitter and bonked a Russia-linked oil tanker, the Smyrtos, off the coast of the Isle of Wight...