The real reason Putin targeted HMS Defender

When military personnel talk of ‘theatres’ they mean a zone of conflict. Moscow seems to take the term increasingly literally, though, regarding spin as an essential tool of martial statecraft.

This was especially visible in yesterday’s claims that its Border Guard ships fired warning shots and Black Sea Fleet Su-24 bombers dropped OFAB-250 fragmentation bombs because the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Defender ‘intruded’ onto Russia’s ‘territorial waters.’ After which, Moscow smugly noted, Defender ‘left’ those waters.

Except that very little of that seems to be true. First of all, the waters in question were off Cape Fiolent, at the southern tip of the Crimean peninsula. By international law, the waters off Crimea are certainly not Russian, because its annexation has no international standing. (Even Belarus’s Lukashenko, who is now so dependent on Moscow, hasn’t recognised it.)

Defender’s mission was in part a so-called FONOP, a Freedom of Navigation Operation, intended to signal that Russia’s land- (and sea-) grab was not going to be recognised.