AIBU to think a Russian ship firing in home waters matters?

[Gizzaeycon]

Shouldn’t we all be making a bit more fuss about the fact that a Russian ship fired at a British boat in home waters? That’s a very serious thing to happen, right?

Perhaps I’m being naive, but I don’t think it’s such a big deal. Russian ship sounded on the horn, which the sailboat admitted was to make sure they had seen them, sailboat then altered their course by only 2°, which is a very little amount – so the Russian ship sounded the horn again. The Russian ship then fired into the air above their own vessel. They did not fire at the sailboat. Apparently it was foggy, the Channel is a very busy waterway. The Russian vessel was there legally.

What do you want? War??? That’s not going to end well.

It wasn't in home waters. It was international waters about 23 miles from the Isle of Wight

It’s a bit alarming but the Russian ship was in international waters. The couple from the yacht were on BBC radio Sussex this morning and said the Russians didn’t fire at them but just to warn them. They dispute that the Russians are saying they sounded the horn etc to alert the yacht to a potential collision because the couple said that absolutely wasn’t about to happen.
Apparently there was another incident in the Channel recently with a Russian ship but I didn’t catch what happened there.

What I've been hearing/reading from maritime/ex-martime professionals ties in with a few of the above comments.

The Russian vessel was in international waters (and possibly for reasons unknown not in a position to manoeuvre, so sail v. Steam rules of priority may have been irrelevant)

Rumour has it the yacht was on a collision course, didn't respond to radio calls or warning by siren/horn - the point made by @ItsmeMargo ,.so louder noise was required...

Interestingly a few ex-Navy types reckon in this day and age of increased threat levels it's likely a yacht drifting towards a RN or USN vessel might have got a warning delivered in a similar manner.

No we shouldn't, because that isn't what happened.

Ok appreciate these posts

Wasn’t there a way to contact them by radio first?

It sounds more dramatic than it probably was. Even the old couple were quite chilled about it on the news.

I read that the Russians said that they tried to contact via radio but didn’t get a response. Seems a bit close even if it is deemed to be international waters. A lot of Russian vessels seem to creep around the UK.

The Russian ship tried to contact them by radio several times.

This isn’t the sinking of the Lusitania, this is a very minor issue that the Jingoistic right-wing press want to play up .. they love nothing more than a war.

It wasn't in UK waters. The report is a bit confused - apparently the Russian vessel issued the standard five horn blasts, followed by another five, followed by flares, followed by small arms fire into the air. The British vessel says they altered course after the first five horn blasts.

Of course if a Russian ship, in British waters, had fired at a yacht then it would be very concerning. But that didn't happen. @Gizzaeycon where did you get your info from? They've misled you

The Russian boat had limited ability to manoeuvre, and the yacht still hadn't changed cause after lots of horn sounding from the Russian boat
I am really struggling to understand why the yacht was so close or why it answer the radio or change course properly. Everyone knows you give big ships lots of space!

They don't care - they've laid the groundwork, now watch as all the Reform and Restore supporters pile on and point to this as just further evidence of Starmer's weakness.

Maybe they will care, now that they've been told that their info was fake. Maybe they'll come back and apologise for not fact checking before posting. I'll not hold my breath

It's the Russians wanting to save a bit of face after the Navy took one of their shadow vessels I think it's good we are being a bit more proactive about the shadow fleet (without going the full US craziness of blowing ships out of the water. There's a balance. But Russia wants to be able to show they are in fact stronk albeit in a petty way.
The best thing the government can do IMO is ignore it as in itself it's a bit of a non event. No ships were fired on.
While I agree that the UK Navy needs serious work and money spent on it I'm not especially worried about the Mighty Russian Navy overwhelming us. The Ukrainians decimated their black sea fleet while not having any real warships thenselves. And we do have underwater drones etc. And Russia knows this.

The last time this happened, the Russians actually sank some fishing boats and people died. Google "The Dogger Bank Incident".

This is very small stuff.

The Russian Navy has always been a bunch of trigger happy incompetents.

The 1904 one? Where they mistook British fishing vessels for Japanese torpedo boats and fired on them? Seems very different to me

Sounds like a load of hoo hah over nothing.

If I owned a yacht I would be much happier that another ship had let off some warning shots to let me know they were there than having it totaled by some giant warship steering into it.

Of course if they were actually firing at me it would be a different issue.

I’m happy to accept I was misinformed - and happy if this is not such a serious incident as it at first appeared.
I got my information from skimming the papers on PressReader so I accept I could have misjudged it. (I know, I know…it’s been a busy morning here today.)
Headlines like this “Dangerous escalations such as this usually only happen on brink of war” from The Telegraph and “Putin Opens Fire in the Channel” (Daily Mail) do suggest tensions are escalating at a faster and more serious rate than I had previously imagined. I’m not trying to stoke more problems- just trying to stay informed.

So the Daily Telegraph and Mail had dishonest click bait headlines. I'm completely shocked

Ok so now what?

Can't see what the fuss is about. It was foggy. The warship gave a warning of where it was. The yacht only altered course by 2 degrees. Given that the warship appeared to be drifting, it might well have needed a big area to manoeuvre and so has given a second warning. Yacht did nothing so the warship assumed that the message had not gone through and fired small arms into the air. Yacht then altered course by 90 degrees. Why didn't it do that in the first place?
I suspect all vessels of all countries, UK included, would have done exactly the same. Media whipping this up for no reason.

I guess we accept that it’s perfectly fine and normal for the Russians to fire warning shots over British yachts, otherwise we’ll be accused of deliberately stirring up trouble for the government.