A British couple on a sailing holiday in the English Channel have described a harrowing encounter with a Russian warship that they say ignored hails and fired warning shots. The incident, which occurred on Tuesday off the coast of Devon, has raised serious questions about the Royal Navy’s ability to monitor and respond to foreign naval activity in UK waters.
Mark and Sarah Thompson, from Falmouth, were aboard their 12-metre yacht “Sea Mist” when they spotted a dark grey vessel on the horizon. Within minutes, the ship, later identified as the Russian frigate Admiral Gorshkov, altered course and steamed directly toward them. Mr Thompson, a retired merchant navy officer, told this paper: “I tried raising them on Channel 16. No response. Then a warning fire went up across our bow. The blast was deafening. My wife was terrified.”
The couple’s account is supported by radio logs and photographic evidence showing the warship within 500 metres of the small yacht. The UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency confirmed it received a distress call but declined to comment on the Royal Navy’s response. Sources say the nearest Royal Navy patrol vessel was over 100 nautical miles away, attending a routine exercise off Scotland.
“This is a failure of deterrence,” said Dr Eleanor Parkes, a defence analyst at the Royal United Services Institute. “Russian navy activity in the Channel has increased threefold over the past year, yet our surface fleet is stretched thin. We are essentially relying on NATO allies to police our own backyard.”
The Ministry of Defence refused to confirm or deny the presence of a UK warship in the area, stating only that “the Royal Navy maintains a continuous presence to protect UK interests.” However, leaked internal emails obtained by this newspaper show that the navy’s Fleet Commander, Vice Admiral Sir James Thornton, warned last month that “reduced frigate numbers have created a capability gap that adversaries will exploit.”
The Thompson family has since lodged a formal complaint with the Foreign Office. Mr Thompson said: “We were left alone out there. What if they had fired on us? The navy’s response was a disgrace.” The incident echoes a similar confrontation in 2020 when a Russian destroyer came within 200 metres of a Dutch frigate in the North Sea.
As the sun sets on a declining surface fleet, the question is no longer whether Russian ships will test our waters but whether we have the warships to respond. The answer, increasingly, appears to be no.
