New details about the warship off the Crimea: secret papers found at a bus stop in Great Britain – Politics

In Great Britain, the Ministry of Defense’s discovery of classified documents has caused an uproar: As the BBC reported on Sunday, an anonymous citizen reported finding behind a bus stop in Kent in southern England on Tuesday morning. It also contains documents relating to the flight of the British destroyer HMS Defender across the Black Sea, which led to clashes with Russia on Wednesday.

According to the BBC, the sunken pile of papers found by the anonymous citizen contains nearly 50 pages of classified documents; Including emails and PowerPoint presentations. They related, among other things, to the controversial passage of “HMS Defender”. This indicates that London was well aware of the possible sharp reaction from Moscow to the passage of the warship off the coast of the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia.

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The Russian Ministry of Defense announced, on Wednesday, that it fired warning shots at the British warship for violating Russian territorial waters. A day later, the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned the British ambassador to protest “provocative and dangerous actions.” London refused to photograph. Accordingly, the “HMS Defender” was only on a “peaceful passage through Ukrainian waters”.

However, the documents appear to show that British Ministry officials expected a reaction from the Russian military, but deliberately decided not to take an alternative route – among other things, because Moscow might then think that the UK was “scared” and “turned on.” Path.” Other missing documents included plans for a possible British military presence in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of international forces.

“Something like this should not have happened,” said Brandon Lewis, Minister of State and Northern Ireland security expert. According to a UK MoD spokesperson, a staff member had already reported the documents missing last week.

The spokesman said the ministry takes “information security very seriously” and has launched an investigation. On the subject of “HMS Defender” he added that “as the public should expect”, all potential influencing factors will be carefully analyzed before “operational decisions”.

Russia responded to the incident with sarcasm and malice: “007 agents are no longer what they were before,” the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Sakharov, wrote in the Telegram news channel. What do ‘Russian hackers’ need when there are British bus stations? (AFP, dpa)