A RUSSIAN warship carried out a "live fire" exercise around 40 miles from the UK coast, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said.
The ship was monitored and shadowed by a Royal Navy vessel as well as being tracked by the French military.
Prior to opening fire around 40 nautical miles south of Plymouth, the Russian warship informed the Royal Navy Offshore Patrol Vessel, HMS Tyne, of its intention to conduct the exercise.
The conformation reportedly came after the Russian frigate, known as the Neustrashimy, was contacted over radio by a French military aircraft crew.
The Russian warship requested that that HMS Tyne reposition to a safer distance, which it did. The Russian live-fire exercise took place in international waters off the coast of Devon and lasted for 30 minutes.
It comes a month after Royal Marine Commandos boarded a Russian-linked oil tanker in the English Channel.
The ship is understood to have been part of Russia's "shadow fleet", which uses difficult-to-track registration information to avoid international sanctions put in place after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The MoD said Royal Marine commandos and specially trained law enforcement officers from the National Crime Agency (NCA) boarded a sanctioned oil tanker during a six-hour operation – the first UK-led operation of its kind.
According to the MoD, the operation was supported by aircraft from the Maritime Air Group (Chinooks, Merlin Mk4 and Wildcat), an RAF P-8 aircraft, and HMS Sutherland and HMS Ledbury.
A civilian yacht was also subject to warning shots from a Russian warship off the coast of the Isle of Wight after it was deemed, by the Russian defence ministry, to have been on a "dangerous approach" towards the Russian ship.
Russian warships regularly pass through international waters in the Channel, which are separate from UK and French territorial waters.
