Moscow will shortly summon the UK ambassador to Russia, Deborah Bronnert, over its accusation that “British specialists” were involved in a Ukrainian drone attack on the Crimean port of Sevastopol, the Russia foreign ministry has said.
Russia has, without providing evidence, repeatedly blamed the UK for Saturday’s audacious attack, in which a swarm of drones attacked Russia’s Black Sea fleet.
Russian officials have claimed a Royal Navy unit directed operations from the southern Ukrainian port of Ochakiv. The UK has dismissed this as “false claims of an epic scale”.
Maria Zakharova, a Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, said: “These actions were carried out under the guidance of British specialists. In this regard, the British ambassador will shortly be summoned to the Russian foreign ministry.” She said Bronnert would be presented with evidence of British involvement in the strike.
The drone attack led Moscow to suspend its involvement in a Black Sea grain deal. In a surprise move, Russia’s defence ministry said on Wednesday that it would rejoin the deal, ending a deadlock that threatened to reignite a global food crisis.
The Kremlin has recently stepped up its aggressive rhetoric towards the UK, also accusing the Royal Navy of “directing and coordinating” attacks on the Nord Stream undersea gas pipelines in September.
On Tuesday, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, threatened Britain with unspecified consequences over its alleged actions. “Such actions cannot be put aside. Of course, we will think about further steps. It definitely cannot be left like this,” Peskov said.
Britain has previously said Moscow was making the accusations to detract from its failing military campaign in Ukraine. “To detract from their disastrous handling of the illegal invasion of Ukraine, the Russian ministry of defence is resorting to peddling false claims of an epic scale,” the British defence ministry said. “This invented story says more about arguments going on inside the Russian government than it does about the west.”
A western official similarly told Reuters on Wednesday that Russia’s claim of UK involvement in the attacks in Crimea and on the Nord Stream pipelines was an attempt by Vladimir Putin “to distract attention from the Ukraine war.”
“He has been weakened by this really catastrophic error,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “We are seeing the Russian military humbled on the battlefield by Ukraine.”
