What the latest diplomatic spat with Russia was really all about

When the news broke, it was hard to believe. Not the fact of there having been an incident involving Russia and a British warship in the Black Sea – that was all too credible – but what was claimed and denied.

Russia said that its forces had fired warning shots and dropped bombs in the path of the warship, HMS Defender. The British responded by saying that, no, they hadn’t. This was the first time – in many years of following the ups and (usually) downs of UK-Russia relations – that I can recall Russia claiming what could be seen as an aggressive and warlike act, and the UK denying that Russia had done anything untoward.

The first explanation from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) was that the ship had received advance warning of a Russian exercise and that, in so far as there had been any firing, it had nothing to do with the ship. The second version offered vivid footage of British dering-do in the face of vain Russian attempts to force a change of course – or so it seemed, from the reports of journalists on board.

Some headlines positively oozed British defiance in the face of unwarranted Russian aggression. It all looked rather serious on the BBC News at 10pm, except that the crew members interviewed by the public broadcaster’s defence correspondent seemed, as I read their expressions, to be treating it as a bit of a lark – or maybe it was just the famed national stiff upper lip. At any rate, it was clear: the start of the third world war this was not. Not even close.

So what was it? Strip away the propaganda (on both sides), and the bare facts would appear to be these. HMS Defender had been visiting Ukraine’s main port of Odessa and from there the ship was to sail to Georgia – like Ukraine, a now independent former Soviet state with aspirations to join the Nato alliance. It could have taken a more southerly route, which would have left it in international waters. Instead, it hugged the coast of Crimea, entering waters that are legally considered Ukraine’s, but which Moscow regards as Russian since it annexed Crimea in 2014.

In taking this route, the UK warship set out deliberately to make a point. This is not my scurrilous subjective interpretation. In his first dispatch from HM Defender, the BBC’s Jonathan Beale stated: “We have just completed a transit through Russian-occupied Crimea’s territorial waters. This was a deliberate move by the royal navy warship which is on its way to Georgia.” You cannot really get clearer than that.

In other words, the point of taking this route was entirely political. It was to demonstrate that the UK does not accept Russia’s claim to Crimea and would assert its right – under international maritime law – to what it called “innocent passage”. This is the same provision that permits Russian and other foreign warships to sail through the English Channel.

The Channel, though, is not – at least not yet – disputed waters, and it is hard to believe that HMS Defender would have skirted danger in this way without the say-so of either the top brass or, probably, the prime minister himself. In principle, this was risky stuff.

In practice, however, something about the way this played out suggests a measure of complicity and bluff all round. The Russian navy may have hyped its response – whether to please its masters in the Kremlin or to fit a prepared script. And the MoD may have kept up its denials until the ship was out of potential danger – at which point it became the latest standard-bearer for plucky little Britain. Cue growls in Moscow, which dubbed the ship "HMS Provocateur", cheers in Ukraine and congratulations (and future medals?) from London.

There might also have been an extra dimension. The defence secretary, Ben Wallace, alluded to an incident last October, when – according to Russia – another UK warship, HMS Dragon, had been forced to alter its course through the Black Sea. Russia had flaunted this as a victory, while the MoD denied any course change. How better to expunge what may or may not have been a loss of British face by repeating that voyage – and essentially daring Russia to respond. Was that HMS Defender’s aim? If so, it would appear, mission accomplished; tots of rum all around. All’s well that ends well.

Except that these are perilous games. Near misses and misunderstandings and how to avoid them were a major topic at the recent US-Russia summit, as the military well knows that this is how wars can begin. And here, just a week later, to confirm all the mutual stereotypes, was a deliberate provocation of Russia by a UK warship. To the UK it reinforced the image of Russia as prone to needless aggression against a principled Britain committed to upholding the “rule of law”, while it allowed the Russian armed forces to show themselves defending the national honour against a pesky little Britain still harbouring great-power delusions.

Not only are such games dangerous, however, they rarely happen outside a political context. And that political context happens to be particularly volatile at present, albeit not obviously so. The early summit meeting that took place in Geneva between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin altered the context for more than those two major players. It had implications for Ukraine, for the EU – and, above all, perhaps, for the UK.

Since the fall of Viktor Yanukovych and everything that followed in 2014, Ukraine has been – even more than it ever was – a pawn in the post-Soviet powerplay between Nato, the US and Russia. The Biden-Putin rapprochement threatens to leave Ukraine out on a limb, or at least to force Kyiv to present its case for support in its own right, rather than as a bulwark against Russia. That might suit President Zelensky, but it will not suit many of those with influence in Ukraine, for whom the anti-Russia card has been a winner.

For the EU, the prospect of slightly warmer, if not completely normal, US-Russia relations potentially changes the internal dynamics, in strengthening the hand of those, such as France and Germany, who want to improve EU-Russia relations, against the Baltic states and Poland. The hardliners’ position had already been weakened by Biden’s decision not to try to stop the completion of the Germany-Russia Nordstream-2 gas pipeline, and before that by the departure of the UK, which left them without their reliable anti-Russia cheerleader. The EU summit, currently in progress, has Russia policy on the agenda.

And finally, the UK. The prospect of a Biden-Putin accommodation, and the distinct warming of US-EU relations following Biden’s visit to Brussels, leaves the UK potentially lonely in its cold-shouldering of Putin’s Russia – for all the bonhomie between Boris Johnson and Biden at the G7.

In this context, the mission of HMS Defender sent certain signals. It showed that someone still cares about Ukraine and Georgia even if US support wanes; it showed the UK as a doughty naval power undaunted by Russia, and it illustrated the UK’s value to Nato and Global Britain’s readiness to patrol international seaways (though good luck trying the Crimea approach in parts of the South China Sea).

The double message from the shots that were clearly fired in the vicinity of HMS Defender, but played down by the UK MoD, however, could also herald a change in calculations in London. In the wake of the US-Russia summit, Ben Wallace floated the possibility of a Johnson-Putin meeting, telling Sky News: “Boris Johnson is clearly open to meet anyone where there is an important step to be made and stepping towards normalising relations with Russia will obviously and hopefully come, but it comes following certain actions.” We will see what those “actions” might be. But it never harms to play to the hawks at home, especially not if considering a major U-turn.