UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said warning shots fired by a Russian warship at an unarmed British yacht in the Channel were reckless but not sinister.

Axar.az informs, citing The Telegraph, the Admiral Grigorovich, a 409ft-long Russian frigate, fired a volley of warning shots at a pleasure boat crewed by Jane and Alan Kelvey, two British retirees, on Tuesday.

The incident came days after Sir Keir ordered the Royal Marines to seize Smyrtos, a Russian shadow tanker carrying sanctioned oil, in the Channel.

But the Prime Minister appeared to downplay the yacht incident on Wednesday morning, insisting the Grigorovich had been drifting, which could mean that its crew felt vulnerable to collision.

He told GB News: “Clearly that shouldn’t have happened. I think it’s reckless, but it does look as if the MoD assessment is it was drifting, and that’s what it is... a drifting warship, rather than anything more sinister.”

Military sources also downplayed the encounter as a “nautical incident” rather than escalatory behaviour by Russia, suggesting that the fault lay with the pleasure boat.

They stressed that issuing warning shots was standard procedure for warships feeling vulnerable to a risk of collision.