The breaking story in London this morning is the “surprise” discovery of a pile of classified Defense Ministry documents, about 50 pages in all, at a bus stop in Kent on Tuesday morning (June 22). According to the BBC they include documents, dated June 21, discussing the transit of the HMS Defender from Odessa to Batumi, Georgia. The documents show that a mission described by the MoD as an “innocent passage through Ukrainian territorial waters", with guns covered and the ship’s helicopter stowed in its hangar, was conducted in the expectation that Russia might respond aggressively. The mission, dubbed “Op Ditroite", was the subject of high-level discussions as late as Monday, the documents show, with officials speculating about Russia’s reaction if HMS Defender sailed close to Crimea.
The documents note that recent interactions between the Royal Navy and the Russians in the eastern Mediterranean had been professional and unremarkable but, the BBC notes, “officials knew this was about to change.”
“Following the transition from defence engagement activity to operational activity, it is highly likely that RFN (Russian navy) and VKS (Russian air force) interactions will become more frequent and assertive,” one presentation warned. A series of slides prepared at the UK’s Permanent Joint HQ shows two routing options, one described as “a safe and professional direct transit from Odessa to Batumi", including a short stretch through a “Traffic Separation Scheme” (TSS) close to the south-west tip of Crimea, within Russian territorial waters. This route, one slide concluded, would “provide an opportunity to engage with the Ukrainian government… in what the UK recognises as Ukrainian territorial waters.”
An alternative route was considered, which would have kept HMS Defender well away from contested waters. This would have avoided confrontation, the presentation noted, but ran the risk of being portrayed by Russia as evidence of “the UK being scared/running away", allowing Russia to claim that the UK had belatedly accepted Moscow’s claim to Crimean territorial waters.
According to the BBC’s assessment, the documents discovered in Kent confirm that passage through the TSS was a calculated decision by the British government to make a show of support for Ukraine, despite the possible risks involved.
According to the BBC’s account, the documents were found at the bus stop Tuesday morning by a private citizen who chose to remain anonymous. He contacted the BBC when he realized the sensitive nature of the documents. The time lag between their discovery and the BBC report this morning is not explained.
