British navy ships shadow Russian frigate around UK

HMS Iron Duke, in foreground, shadows the Russian Admiral Grigorovich, background, through the UK waters. ©Daily Telegraph

British navy ships have tracked a Russian vessel in UK waters and escorted it out of the region.

The Russian frigate, Admiral Grigorovich, was followed by two British ships as it passed from the Baltic Sea, through the North Sea and into the English Channel, Daily Telegraph reported on Tuesday.

HMS Iron Duke, which was operating with a NATO task force, initially detected the frigate last week. The patrol was later handed over to HMS Sutherland and the Russian vessel was escorted down from the North Sea off Denmark through the Dover Straits and into the Channel.

The Dutch ship HNLMS Rotterdam and Belgian ship BNS Castor later joined Sutherland as part of the NATO task.

The frigate is believed to be on a passage to the Black Sea.

HMS Sutherland Commanding Officer Trish Kohn said, “The Admiral Grigorovich was continually monitored as she sailed south from the Baltic.”

“The transit of Russian ships from their northern ports is not unusual, but we’re ready to protect UK territorial waters,” he added.

This is while British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon has said the country’s armed forces have been working hard to “provide reassurance here at home and to our eastern NATO allies.”

File photo shows British Royal Navy's HMS Sutherland.

“We have troops exercising and providing training, planes policing the skies and ships patrolling the Baltics,” Fallon added.

In March, a British warship monitored a Russian destroyer and its support ships as they transited the UK area of responsibility. The Russian naval task was returning from a deployment to Syria. It sailed off the Scottish coast toward Russia.

Source: presstv