LONDON (AP) — A Russian warship fired warning shots near a U.K.-registered pleasure yacht in the English Channel on Tuesday, authorities said, an incident that caused no damage but illustrated heightened tensions between the two countries.
Britain's Defense Ministry launched an investigation after the yacht reported being fired on by a Russian navy vessel about 20 nautical miles (23 miles, 37 kilometers) south of the Isle of Wight, outside U.K. territorial waters.
There were no reports of injuries or damage to the sailing yacht, which continued its journey from the U.K. toward France.
The BBC reported that the yacht, which has no motor, had drifted toward the Russian vessel in foggy conditions.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said the crew of the frigate Admiral Grigorovich tried to contact the yacht when it was seen sailing on a “dangerous course in close proximity with the warship.” It said the ship's crew launched flares and issued sound signals when the yacht did not respond.
“After the distance had closed to 150 meters (500 feet), the frigate’s commander decided to fire warning shots across the vessel’s bow using small arms,” the ministry said. It said the yacht then changed course and sailed away.
The ministry said the ship's crew “acted in strict accordance” with international navigation rules to avoid a collision.
Britain's account of the incident was similar.
“Following attempts to contact a British vessel in the channel, the Grigorovich fired warning shots. These were not aimed at the vessel and were an attempt to prevent a possible collision," Britain's Defense Ministry said in a statement.
Russian warships passing through the English Channel are routinely shadowed by the Royal Navy, and patrol vessel HMS Mersey was monitoring the Russian ship at the time of the reported incident and provided support to the yacht's crew.
The British military said last month that it had monitored the Admiral Grigorovich throughout April as the Russian ship escorted six Russia-linked civilian vessels near the U.K.
The altercation occurred two days after British commandos boarded and detained a sanctioned tanker in the Channel that is suspected of being part of the Russian “shadow fleet.” British defense officials said they don't believe the two events are linked.
The tanker's captain, an Indian national charged with shipping Russian oil in violation of international sanctions over Moscow’s war on Ukraine, was ordered held in jail after appearing Tuesday in court.
The British military has had several close encounters with Russian vessels in the region and warned Moscow in November that it was ready to deal with any incursion into its territory after the spy ship Yantar was detected on the edge of U.K. waters north of Scotland.
In April, Britain and Norway said they had tracked a Russian attack sub and two spy submarines operating north of the U.K. for several weeks.
A Royal Navy frigate, aircraft and hundreds of personnel spent weeks following the Russian vessels and prevented them from carrying out “nefarious” activities against underwater infrastructure, then-Defense Secretary John Healey said.
He accused Moscow of using the distraction of the Iran war to ramp up malign activity against Europe.
Five years ago, Russia said one of its warships fired warning shots and a warplane dropped bombs in the Black Sea to force the British destroyer HMS Defender out of an area near Crimea that Moscow claimed as its territorial waters.
The U.K. denied that account and insisted its ship wasn’t fired upon. It was the first time since the Cold War that Moscow acknowledged using live ammunition to deter a NATO warship, reflecting the growing risk of military incidents amid soaring tensions between Russia and the West. The incident occurred about six months before Russia invaded Ukraine.
An earlier version of this story said the incident occurred about 20 miles south of the Isle of Wight. It is 20 nautical miles, or 23 miles.
FILE - A Russian warship is docked in Port Sudan, Sudan, on Feb. 28, 2021. (AP Photo, File)
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — A man was charged on Thursday with threatening an Australian lawmaker’s staff with nunchucks days after another legislator was critically injured when a man repeatedly hit her with a car.
Nunchucks are a controlled weapon used in martial arts consisting of two or more batons joined by a cord, rope or chain, according to Western Australia state law. Nunchucks can only be carried in public in the state for use in legitimate sports, training or martial arts instruction.
The incidents are heightening concerns about female politicians’ safety and security in a country where lawmakers are highly accessible to the public.
Prosecutors said in a Perth court on Thursday that John Lawrence Smart, 56, was screaming when he entered Western Australian state government minister Hannah Beazley’s electorate office in suburban Perth on Wednesday, demanding to see her while holding above his head two pieces of wood tied together.
Beazley wasn’t in the office at the time. Two staff members remained safe behind a security barrier in the office and no one was hurt.
“It was confronting,” Beazley posted on social media.
Smart said from the prisoner’s dock that he had been holding claves, not nunchucks. Claves are typically wooden sticks used as a percussion instrument.
Magistrate Heidi Watson refused to release Smart on bail, saying he posed a potential risk to himself and the public. She ordered Smart to be medically assessed while in custody. He had previously been involuntarily admitted to hospital with schizophrenia.
Smart did not enter pleas to charges of being armed, or pretending to be armed, in a way that may cause fear and with making an unlawful threat.
There was no allegation that Smart's alleged behavior was connected to the driver who hit federal lawmaker Helen Haines with his car in the east coast state of Victoria on Monday.
Haines' alleged attacker, Brendan Nugent, appeared in a court on Wednesday on charges including intentionally causing serious injury. He did not enter pleas and remains in custody.
Police are still searching for a motive.
Haines, a 65-year-old independent lawmaker, remained in critical condition on Thursday in a Melbourne hospital where surgeons have amputated both her legs, a health department statement said.
Both the Haines and Beazley incidents have raised concerns about the safety of female politicians, who account for a growing proportion of lawmakers in Australian parliaments. Just under 50% of federal lawmakers and a majority of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Cabinet are women.
Australian lawmakers are some of the most accessible in the world and political violence has traditionally been rare. But there are fears that increasingly toxic public debate driven by social media creates additional risks for elected women.
Albanese said the fact that the threat to Beazley came so soon after the alleged attack on Haines was “just heartbreaking.” Beazley is the daughter of Albanese's former federal colleague, Kim Beazley.
“We can have debate and disagreement, but do it in a way without descending into the sort of violence that we have seen in too many parts of the world,” Albanese told Australian Broadcasting Corp. “It’s certainly not who we are as Australians.”
Albanese attended an online security briefing this week for women lawmakers in his center-left Labor Party. Security agencies addressed misogynistic threats directed at them.
Male and female federal lawmakers agree that women are facing the worst of the online abuse.
“Of course people are concerned. They’re anxious,” Albanese said. “There has been a normalization of behavior that can be very aggressive in a way that wasn’t happening a couple of decades ago.”
Governor-General Sam Mostyn, who is only the second woman to ever serve as the British monarch’s representative in Australia, said that she was abused on social media for speaking at a press conference on Wednesday alongside Haines’ husband Phil Haines.
“Like any woman who has stepped up into any position across any part of our society, there is a unique and pernicious form of attack that comes our way,” Mostyn told ABC.
“Women across the country know that there are certain things that are reserved for women in that attack that go to our gender and they are often vicious and just despicable,” she added.
Western Australian state government minister Hannah Beazley arrive for a Labor caucus meeting in Perth, Australia, June 6, 2023. (Richard Wainwright/AAP Image via AP)
