A senior Russian security official warned Britain on Wednesday not to sail its warships near Russian-annexed Crimea again unless it wanted its sailors to get hurt.
The warning, issued by the Deputy Secretary of Russia’s Security Council, Mikhail Popov, follows an incident last month when British warship HMS Defender exercised what London said were internationally recognized freedom of navigation rules in Ukrainian territorial waters near Crimea.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and says the waters around it belong to Moscow now despite most countries continuing to recognize the peninsula as Ukrainian.
It protested strongly against the British move at the time with a coastguard vessel firing warning shots and summoned the British ambassador for an explanation.
Popov, in an interview in the state Rossiiyskaya Gazeta newspaper, said Britain’s behavior and its subsequent reaction to the incident was bewildering.
In particular, he criticized suggestions from British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Foreign Minister Dominic Raab that the incident could be repeated.
He said, “Similar actions will be thwarted with the harshest methods in future by Russia regardless of the violator’s state allegiance. We suggest our opponents think hard about whether it’s worth organizing such provocations given the capabilities of Russia’s armed forces.