"We don't want this to start World War III"

A British woman who was on a yacht in the English Channel, near which a Russian warship fired warning shots, disputed the Russian version of events and said she did not want the incident to be exaggerated, saying: "We do not want this to start World War III."

Jane Kelvey, 69, and her husband Alan, 70, were on their yacht Bright Future sailing from the south coast of England to France on Tuesday when they came within striking distance of the Admiral Grigorovich, a 125-metre Russian frigate.

Jane said the warship fired four or five warning shots. "You know when the guns are fired. You recognise that sound," Kelvey told The Guardian. "We just don't want to make it into something much bigger than it is. We don't want this to start World War Three because if it had just been five blasts of the siren, we wouldn't have reported it, there wouldn't have been anything to report. It was just a bit of a surprise that the gunfire was there," Kelvey said.

The Russian ministry said on Tuesday that the frigate's crew had spotted a yacht heading in a direction that posed a risk of collision with the ship. After repeated attempts to establish radio contact were unsuccessful, the frigate fired warning shots, including small arms fire, in front of the yacht, the ministry said. It added that the yacht then changed course and moved away.

Jane, however, claims that the Russian statement is incorrect. Giving her version of events, she said: "We were sailing on our course from Lymington to Cherbourg at about five knots and we could see them in the distance. As we got closer we saw that it was a warship. We saw Cyrillic writing on the side and assumed it was a Russian warship."

"We were not on the verge of a collision with them. They did not appear to be floating out of control, as they claim, or to be unable to maneuver. They had plenty of opportunities to warn us to move away, if they had wanted to," she said. "They did not fire flares, they did not radio us, they just gave five blasts on their sirens to let us know they were there. We accepted that by changing course, and then they gave five more blasts, and then fired warning shots. Then we started the engine and turned about 90 degrees to the left to get completely out of their way. But we were not in their way, nor were we on the verge of a collision with them at all."

The Russian statement said the navy personnel acted "strictly in accordance" with international navigation rules. However, Jane said: "They obviously understood that what they did would cause concern, so I think they quickly issued their statement and tried to frame it in a way that would shift the blame to us."

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said yesterday that the firing of warning shots from a Russian frigate to divert a British-flagged civilian yacht near British territorial waters was reckless and deeply concerning.

"What happened in the English Channel was deeply concerning," Starmer, who is in France for the G7 summit, told BBC News. "It should not have happened. It was reckless and the couple on the yacht must have been terrified."