A Russian warship fired warning shots at an elderly British couple near the Isle of Wight. Now the couple says the UK is trying to hush it up.

Key Points:

• On June 16, the Russian frigate Admiral Grigorovich fired warning shots near a private yacht, Bright Future, in the English Channel without causing injuries, prompting UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to label the Russian actions as “reckless” but likely not “malicious.”
• The elderly couple aboard the yacht, Jane and Alan Kelvey, denied any wrongdoing and described the Russian response as excessive, stating the yacht had altered course to signal awareness and that the warning shots were fired into the air.
• Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed the frigate had made repeated radio contact attempts and fired signal flares before resorting to warning shots when the yacht failed to respond and closed to 150 meters, asserting their actions complied with international navigation rules.
• The UK Defense Ministry stated the Russian frigate’s shots were intended to prevent a possible collision and were not aimed directly at the yacht, while the Kelveys accused British authorities of downplaying the incident to avoid escalating tensions with Russia.
• The Kelveys criticized the UK Defense Ministry for echoing the Russian narrative and suggested that the British government was trying to minimize the event’s seriousness amidst already strained UK-Russia relations.