“Russia and China are now working together in a very aggressive way because they think they have America on the run,’
Joe Biden, the US president, has been accused of having emboldened Russia as sources told The Telegraph that the US decided against sailing close to Crimea alongside the British.
The Telegraph can reveal that while US Laboon, an American destroyer, has recently been operating with HMS Defender and the Dutch frigate HNLMS Evertsen in the Black Sea, it was “many hundreds of miles away” when the two vessels travelled within 12 miles of Crimea’s shoreline on Wednesday.
The navigation triggered a confrontation with Russia, which scrambled jets and fired warning shots, and a diplomatic clash at a time of rising tensions over Ukraine’s sovereignty.
Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, a move not recognised by most countries, gaining access to its long Black Sea coast. Russia has chafed at NATO warships visiting near Crimea as destabilising. In April, it declared a broader area off Crimea closed to foreign naval ships.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/24/royal-navy-clash-joe-biden-accused-emboldening-russia/
Iain Duncan Smith ByDanielle Sheridan, POLITICAL AND DEFENCE CORRESPONDENT andNataliya Vasilyeva, RUSSIA CORRESPONDENT, MOSCOW24 June 2021 • 8:21pm
Comment: Much has been said of Putin’s skill at sizing up people, skill he supposedly acquired as a an officer (Lt. Colonel) of the 2nd Main Directorate of the KGB (counterintelligence). This is praise which he probably deserves. Well, pilgrim turcopoles, he sized up Joe and found him a feeble old man a man fit only to threaten the American people with armed oppression by Austin and Milly if they do not obey. What Putin said means nothing. What he does means everything. pl
How many red lines did Joe draw for Vlad, can Joe draw a line…………..red or otherwise?
Joe’s gonna be so busy strafing and nukin’ you guys, Vlad? Vlad who? Your enemy lives at home, in your house, with you. Ever watch CNN?
Cheers, M
Mal, you’ll enjoy all that until Joe orders up a bombing of your town and the well indoctrinated officer corps salutes smartly, just like cops in antifa land, and says “bombs away!”
fred
mal is a Canadian.
Fred: the people calling other Americans “traitor” and hoping for life sentences for the Capitol Clown Show clearly don’t read the fine print. Anyone who challenges the prevailing dogma may get branded a domestic terrorist, which will come as quite a shock to the tattooed blue hairs with nose rings.
In Canada you get jailed for holding church services.
With all due respect Colonel, I don’t think the Russians are going to give up Crimea regardless of who is in the White House. They lost Crimea to the British once before – but now they have nukes and London isn’t that far from Kalingrad.
James
You really are a simple soul. This is about Biden. He is a weak man and the adversaries of the US see him as such. Such things mean nothing to Canada because you are insignificant.
Old man unable to kick out the Russian Black Sea Fleet, a space that should be used by the US as the top Ukrainian ideal to look up to and top protector on earth?
Trump, had he not been tricked out of his second term would have managed?
LeAnder
Yes, unpleasant boor that he was.
Years ago, on Oct 1, 1992, I was serving on the staff of Carrier Air Wing 17, embarked aboard the USS Saratoga (CV-60), and better than halfway through a more or less routine Med deployment.
That date, we were involved in NATO exercise Display Determination 92, which was being conducted in the northern Aegean Sea. Shortly before midnight on Oct 1st, due to a tragic string of miscommunications in CIC and lack of situational awareness (frankly a colossal screw-up), the Saratoga accidently fired two armed Sea Sparrow missiles at the Turkish destroyer TCG Muavenet (ex-USS Gwin) which was participating in the NATO exercise. One missile struck the Muavenet’s bridge, killing the CO and four other personnel (22 were injured). The second missile failed to detonate after hitting the ship in the vicinity of the aft magazine.
Why bring this up?
NATO exercise Sea Breeze 21 will begin in the Black Sea next week and run until late July. So we will have NATO ships, vessels of the Ukraine navy and the Russian navy sharing the same (somewhat constricted) maritime space.
Of course, all participants are sharp, well trained, and squared away, and accidents never happen. But imagine for a moment a repeat of that 1992 screw-up, only instead of striking another NATO player, a Russian vessel is hit instead.
Tensions are already running high due to the Royal Navy’s freedom of navigation operations off the Crimea. This next month could prove to be rather interesting depending on how events play out in the Black Sea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCG_Muavenet_(DM_357)
https://shape.nato.int/news-archive/2021/nato-allies-and-partners-ready-for-exercise-sea-breeze-21
Boorda. Didn’t he make CNO 18 months later? And then eat a 12 gauge?
Yup, Boorda did make CNO (he was the first CNO to advance to the command of the Navy from the enlisted ranks).
And he did kill himself after suffering the humiliation of being found out regarding his monkeying around with his awards (‘upgraded’ a NCM or NAM by placing a combat ‘V’ on the ribbon or some such thing).
I seem to recall he used a small caliber handgun.
I responded to Leith’s comment regarding ADM Boorda entirely from memory. And a quarter century is a long time.
Boorda did not engage in any intentional deception regarding his awards. He apparently believed that he was authorized to wear the ‘V’ device on his Navy Commendation and Achievement Medals based on verbal instructions issued by then CNO Elmo Zumwalt to commanders during the Vietnam War. No written authorization was placed into Boorda’s service record.
Boorda stopped wearing the ‘V’ devices about a year before his suicide after being informed that he did not have written authorization to do so.
Simply want to set the record straight for Turcopolier readers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Boorda
Ed Lindgren
It all seemed rather trivial and silly for a CNO or anyone else to kill himself over a mistake concerning such a minor decoration.
It strikes me that there might be more to that story, though I have no evidence. Doesn’t
ring quite right..
I thought the spectacle of the British captain bragging about how fast he retreated from the Russian equivalent of coast cutters was pathetic and lol.
Imagine if, in the current situation off Crimea, a U.S. naval vessel gets attacked or sunk. That would bring the world much closer to a world war.
Far better for a UK ship to run that risk and for any US ships to stay well away.
Especially when Russia is in the right here. The U.S. had no right to sponsor a Nazi coup against an elected Ukrainian government, and Crimea had every right to secede from a Nazi-governed Ukraine.
Regarding Russia’s annexation of Crimea” A move not recognized by most countries”, I’m curious as to how that breaks down into Those that do recognize it, those that don’t, and those that basically have no position on it.
I’m to understand that the Brits claim their destroyer was in “Ukrainian waters” and that the Russians have no claim. The jailhouse lawyers in the room have had a field day with the annexation thing and Ukraine’s claim to Crimea is of course based on Khrushchev’s decision to “give” it to Ukraine in 1956 when Ukraine itself was part of the Soviet Union (which was in reality just the Russian empire). It’s also common knowledge that much of Ukraine is cobbled together from pieces of other entities and Russia has owned and controlled Crimea for quite some time and has taken it back, apparently with the enthusiastic assent of Crimea’s population. So why are we making such a big deal out of it? It hardly seems likely we, the Brits, or anyone else is going to reverse what Russia did and it seems to me that this Black Sea game of nerves has high potential to cause some big problems. What happens if a Brit destroyer captain decides to fire on and shoots down a Russian plane and then is itself destroyed by the Russians? Is The UK going to do a 09/1939 redo and declare war on Russia and interdict it’s maritime commerce?
Know when to hold ’em, know when to fold’ em, know when to walk away, know when to run. What’ll it be going forward. I’m not predicting, just asking questions.
A. Pols – wiki to the rescue:-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_status_of_Crimea#Stances
“I’m to understand that the Brits claim their destroyer was in “Ukrainian waters” and that the Russians have no claim.”
That is one part that I believe nobody has thought through. but they should.
It is indisputable that the Russians have “effective control” of Crimea. That is the ONE thing that all sides can agree on.
Well, that has consequences.
Because if the UK refuses to recognize Russian sovereignty over the Crimea then it must view this to be a territory that has been seized by Russia and placed under a belligerent occupation.
Think about that. Think long and hard about that.
Because “belligerent occupations” are governed by international humanitarian law a.k.a. the Laws of War. They definitely aren’t governed by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and NO foreign warship has a right of innocent passage through the waters of an occupied territory.
Sending a foreign warship within 12 nm of the Crimea coast is a hostile act.
It can’t be anything other than a hostile act, because Britain makes no bones that it is contesting the “authority” of an occupying power to the territory that is under that occupation.
Even under the UK’s own logic that is an act of war, and the Russians showed great restrainst not to send those “warning shots” straight through the bridge of that funny-looking destroyer.
Fool around and find out. The Russians ain’t disposed to take any more guff.
And with a US Navy whose vessels don’t seem to be able to avoid ramming civilian shipping, or maybe even each other? Time and then some to haul off the CRT indoctrination and make yourselves fully, and indisputably fit for service, folks.
Crimea has returned to its rightful owners, rightful because they bled for it over a course of centuries since they knew in their bones that it was of great strategic value to their nation. They know war like no one else, and because of that, they wish to avoid it. But they also know that the situation only gets more dire for them, and enticing for aggressors, if they allow themselves to be perceived of as weak or indecisive, and therefore that will not be happening here for that very reason.
No, it would not be prudent for the Western alliance to accede the Black Sea as a total Russian lake, but ill-advised posturing is foolish in the extreme. This has already been amply illustrated, has it not? This is the pupose of frank diplomacy. Do we have any of those diplomats anymore, or have they all been swapped out for malignant blowhards?
As I said at the start, fool around and find out.
Biden was never an intelligent man.Now that dementia has destroyed his brain he is not in control of anything.
Biden’s handlers are a collection of highly ineffectual Obama staffers.
Reminds me of Bush jr administration.Another dullard put in a position he did not belong being controlled by his fathers cronies.
Love my country not a fan of the imperial court running it.Well ruining it is more appropriate.
An excuse to quote a line from a song by Yello:
“Vicious games – With different names”
https://youtu.be/COrHxDsaTJI
Meanwhile Russia MoD have posted up on youtube some video from their recent CenPac exercises, reportedly having units within 30 miles of “Hawaii” (note that Hawaii includes the Northwest Hawaiian Islands which stretch all the way to Midway, so being close to “Hawaii” can mean many things). A couple of F-22s plus a refueler were sortied last week out of Hickam.
Lord West (former First Sea Lord and Chief of the Royal Naval Staff) is quoted in that Telegraph article:
“That is a bad thing not having American ships showing their support. We had a Dutch ship with us so other NATO members should be going in there.”
This seems an acknowledgment of HMS Defender’s role as a tethered goat (the perfect description used by our own English Outsider). Lord West’s view is relevant, as he has personal experience of the potential consequences of naval engagements over a territorial dispute. West was commander of HMS Ardent in the Falklands War and last to leave her shortly before she sank after being bombed by the Argentine Air Force.
Barbara: I think the British have learned from the Israelis that their power calculations always includes the assumption that US power is included. Dangerous assumption.
After watching the Russian video, I seem to recall that there was only one warship involved which was alleged to be HMS Defender. I say alleged because the very next day, according to AIS on marinetrafficdotcom HMS Defender appeared off Bahrain, about five-six days sailing at top speed from its last recorder position in the Black Sea. Heaven forbid that the Royal Navy should try spoofing AIS, something they’d no doubt whine loudly about if the Russians did.
According to the same website, HNLMS Evertsen seems to be moored off Istanbul in the Sea or Marmara.
What does Russia think of the Great Clinton Re-Set – as a wag on another blog stated, Hilary Clinton now has more Chins than a Chinese phone book:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/06/hillary-clinton-spotted-new-york-city-looking-little-rough/
Are we witnessing end-stage liver failure?
Quite the photo of Mrs. Clinton.. thank you (I think).
On the issue of access to the Black Sea, I imagine Putin doesn’t give a damn who’s POTUS. He, Russia, aren’t going to hand that over to anybody without a fight. Poking at the Brit destroyer was wise, don’t want people getting ideas. On a heck of a lot of other issues it will matter though. We need to review our nominating process. Our best and brightest want nothing to do with the circus it currently is.
The voyage of the HMS Defender and the Russian reaction to it are pure kabuki theater. The West doesn’t recognize Moscow’s sovereignty over Crimea any more than they recognized Moscow’s sovereignty over the Baltics before the 90s. We undertook no serious belligerent actions to liberate the Baltics and we will take no serious belligerent actions to liberate Crimea.
The HMS Defender took a straight course that passed just inside 12 NM of Sevastopol purely as an act of political theater. The Russian Coast Guard vessels went through the motions of pitching a fit about it. It was a bluff. No one intended to shoot or ram anybody. It was almost choreographed.
The real action took place after the event with the Russian spin that the British ship brought us to the brink of war. Our right wing media was only too happy to oblige. There is an FSB released video of the incident.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NS5elmFGYY&t=3s
could lead to war.russians are greedy
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2019/02/28/as-russia-closes-in-on-crimeas-energy-resources-what-is-next-for-ukraine/amp/
TTG
That does not address my point which is that our adversaries have judged
joe to be a feeble old man who is a tool of the far left.
Our adversaries’ actions haven’t become any more emboldened than what they were while Trump was in office. China and Russia continued to strengthen and expand. North Korea continued to develop their nuclear weapons and rockets. What has changed? Joe doesn’t scare them or impress them. Nor did Trump.
TTG
That sounds like a very partisan retort. They could never predict Trump’s reactions. Joe is totally predictable especially after close observation.
Not partisan at all. Neither president has displayed a capability to mold the world outside our borders into anything they want to see. That’s just the nature of today’s world and probably as it should be.
TTG
I agree that it is probably as it should be and should have been since the fall of the USSR. How would you like to be in the battalion of infantry to be left in Kabul? Sounds like The Guides and Cavagnari.
The ultimate DLIC. I know the feeling well in both training and combat.
Sounds like sour grapes by the Telegraph and Tory Iain Smith. USS Laboon was on a long scheduled port visit in Constanta Romania while the UK and Dutch ship were in port at Odessa. Therefore the Laboon had no reason to transit from Odessa and get anywhere near Sevastopol. The Constanta visit was worked out between DoS and their Romanian counterpart long before the Geneva Summit. The last time the Laboon had worked with HMS Defender and HNLMS Evertsen was on the 17th when they all did a series of passing and communication exercises.
Constanta is about 200 nautical miles from Odessa as the crow flies, much longer maybe 300-plus because you have to navigate around the Cape at Saint George [Sfantu Gheorghe] and stay well offshore of the shallows between there and Odessa. Plus the Laboon entered the Black Sea earlier than the Defender and per the requirements of the Montreux Convention she had to leave earlier. She was NOT heading towards Batumi as HMS Defender was. While the Royal Navy was teasing the Russia’s Coast Guard off Sevastopol on 23 June the Laboon was participating in bilateral underway engagement training with Romanian Navy corvette Eustatiu Sebastian as planned previously.
I agree with Mark Logan above – Putin doesn’t give a rat’s ass who is POTUS. He is smart enough to know that the Sanctions Act against Russia was passed by Congress. That is where he hopes to get some influence.
PS – Why didn’t Russia send out some big guns of the Black Sea Fleet instead of the small-boy patrol boats of the FSB armed with only a 30mm?
“Why didn’t Russia send out some big guns of the Black Sea Fleet instead of the small-boy patrol boats of the FSB armed with only a 30mm?”
A few possibilities:
– the largest ship left in the Black Sea Fleet was probably a frigate, not much bigger than the RuCC ships, as the Moskva cruiser is in the Med ‘playing’ with the UK’s carrier task force near Cyprus,
– not enough warning to get even a frigate out from harbour
– clearly shows the RN as the aggressor with the larger ship
– reduced tensions as the RN crew would be looking down their nose at the ‘inferior’ RuCC ship
– should anything have gone badly wrong HMS Defender was a sitting duck to either RuAF aircraft or land based AShM.
Why no big guns from the Black Sea Fleet? The Russians were just as aware as the Brits that this was merely a scene in political kabuki theater. There was no real threat to risk a shooting war. The real action took place in Western media and Western minds. Former Estonian President Toomas Ilves described it best when he stated that “for Russia, the war is the information operation, and they conduct kinetic actions in support of the narrative objectives.” Of course Russia also has the means to go full on kinetic if needed. However, they realize more than most that war is an abomination and will resort to it only when truly necessary.
Colonel
Re your comment on the Guides and Cavagnari, I thought you may be interested in the Taliban’s latest proclamations, in the run up to the US’ final withdrawal. M K Bhadrakumar has reported that the Taliban are preparing for civilian government, with understandably high morale. Their most recent (yesterday) statement reads as though they have engaged a Diversity and Inclusion officer in their PR office:
“Just as the Mujahideen of Islamic Emirate are formed from the diverse ethnic groups, tribes and regions of the country and is a representative force of all people, ethnicities and strata, it therefore reassures all citizens that none will be treated in a discriminatory, vindictive, condescending or hostile manner.”
Later the statement assures women and “minorities” (non-Muslims one presumes) that they will be granted “their due Islamic rights”. The 25th anniversary (Hijri calendar) of the Taliban’s 1996 victorious entry to Kabul following the civil war passed at the end of last year. I don’t know if the Taliban are much for anniversaries, but can there be any doubt that they’ll be ensconced in power in Kabul again by the next one?
I stand corrected about my AIS spoofing comment to English Outsider two days ago as satellite imagery from ESA’s Sentinel-2 apparently shows the HMS Defender to be 20.05 km [~11 nautical miles]. The Sentinel per Wiki has a spatial resolution of ten to 60 meters. So that would put them a mile inside Crimean territorial waters. And the Brit MOD seems to concur with their comment about ‘innocent passage through Ukrainian territorial waters in accordance with international law’.
But that brings up more questions –
Was HMS Defender really conducting Freedom of Navigation Ops? Or was she a decoy to entice radars and comms of coastal, air and naval defenses to light up and perhaps give away location, technical signal data, and op procedures? The rumors of an RC-135 SIGINT bird nearby in international airspace suggests that could be true.
I suppose many eyes, even the Russians, are on the 22 elections. That is when we go in circular firing squad mode.
Putin knows that Biden is just a puppet and that Team Obama runs this administration. While we can debate the merits & de-merits of this administration’s policies, Putin may think it better than the chaos of the Trump administration where Trump’s appointees all decided to go rogue and do their own thing. Heck, Trump nominated guys to the DOJ and FBI who continued the Russia Collusion hoax until the very end. While folks bitch about fat guy Gen. Milley scared about the viking hat guy overthrowing the Constitution and why all soldiers should read Critical Race Theory and Marx and Lenin, who appointed him as Joint Chief of Staff? Yup, Trump!
Interesting namesake for the USS Laboon. Silver Star in WW2 as a young JG. Swam to the rescue of a downed pilot in shallow mined waters just of the coast of Honshu while under fire from a shore battery. In 1946 he entered the Jesuits and ten years later was ordained and became Navy Chaplain. Known affectionately throughout the Navy and Marine Corps as Father Jake. The Chaplain’s Center at Annapolis is also named for him.
https://web.archive.org/web/20090427081633/http://www.laboon.navy.mil/site%20pages/history.aspx