Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby weighed in on the recent incident with the British destroyer HMS Defender and a Russian patrol ship in the Black Sea near Crimea, as he gave a press briefing on 24 June.

Kirby was asked about the events that saw the Russian vessel fire warning shots at HMS Defender, which violated the state border of the Russian Federation, entering three kilometers into its territorial waters, near Cape Fiolent, in the northwestern part of the Black Sea.

The retired Unites States Navy rear admiral, who currently serves as Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, responded by saying:

“Well, I would ask you to go back and look at what the British Ministry of Defense said yesterday. I think they, and this is really for them to speak to, but they were very public about the fact that there was no shots fired as warning to HMS Defender. That it was simply Russian disinformation, as yet another example of the Russians trying to spin events to suit their own narrative. It just didn’t happen.”

The Russian Embassy to the United States was swift to slam the “disinformation” accusations lobbed against Russia by Kirby as “groundless”.

The embassy wrote on its Twitter page that the US was “denying the obvious” harboring “illusions” regarding the actual situation in Crimea.

The Russian Ministry of Defense stated on Wednesday that the UK destroyer HMS Defender had entered its territorial waters off the coast of Crimea in the Black Sea deliberately as a provocation, with a Russian border patrol vessel firing warning shots at the warship, as the British side repeatedly made contradictory statements about the incident.

Source: Sputnik