Russian warship that fired warning shots at pensioners returns to English Channel

A Russian warship which fired warning shots at British pensioners last week has returned to the English Channel.

The Russian frigate Admiral Grigorovich was observed guiding a sanctioned shadow fleet oil tanker yesterday, just two days after the same warship launched warning shots towards a British couple's yacht.

The incident occurred, roughly 20 nautical miles south of the Isle of Wight, between the island and Normandy and outside UK territorial waters.

HMS Mersey was monitoring the Admiral Grigorovich at the time.

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It was the first passage of a shadow fleet vessel through the Strait of Dover since Royal Marines boarded the tanker Smyrtos on Sunday.

The retired couple who own the sailing yacht told GB News that they "didn’t do anything wrong", after the Russians accused them of being on a "dangerous course" with their warship.

The Kelveys told GB News the Russians fired four or five shots into the air at 11.01am.

Alan and Jane explained: "We were not on a collision course in any way, shape or form... we didn't do anything wrong."

They added: "We followed all the collision regulations… the closest we got to them was 500m… and as soon as we heard the gun shots, we put our engine on."

The warship neither transmitted its position nor emitted the required foghorn signals to warn nearby vessels, unlike British and Nato ships navigating the same busy shipping lane.

International regulations mandate that power-driven vessels sound a prolonged horn blast every two minutes in restricted visibility conditions.

Admiral Grigorovich was escorting a Russian-flagged tanker, The Forwarder, which departed from Primorsk last week and entered the Channel on Wednesday evening before heading south, with its destination logged as Dongying in China.

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Britain, the United States and the European Union all imposed sanctions on the vessel in 2025, and it has since operated under two different names.

The British Government alleges the tanker has been transporting Russian oil illicitly and forms part of a network comprising hundreds of shadow fleet ships funding Moscow's military operations.

Since the Smyrtos interception, every UK-sanctioned oil tanker has rerouted to avoid the Channel entirely.

HMS Tyne, a Royal Navy patrol vessel, trailed both Russian ships at approximately one nautical mile distance, broadcasting its position publicly via automatic identification systems.

The Admiral Grigorovich is a 4,000-ton guided-missile frigate and the lead ship of her class in the Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet.

The warship serves as a highly capable multi-role platform designed for anti-surface, anti-submarine, and air defence operations.

It is equipped with vertical launch systems for long-range cruise missiles.

An MoD spokesman said: "Following attempts to contact a British vessel in the channel, the Grigorovich fired warning shots. These were not aimed at the vessel and were an attempt to prevent a possible collision."

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