At the same time, the incident took place that Royal Navy’s Daring Class (Type 45) Air Defence Destroyer HMS Defender visited Odesa and was opened warning fire from the Russian Navy.
BBC said a member of the public who wanted to
remain unnamed contacted it when they found the pile of documents -- about 50
pages in all -- in a soggy heap Tuesday behind a bus stop in Kent, southeast of
London.
The HMS Defender upset Russia’s military on
Wednesday when it sailed south of the Crimean Peninsula in a Black Sea area
that Moscow claims as its territorial waters. Many nations, including the U.K.,
do not accept Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and consider that
area to be Ukrainian waters.
Russia said one of its warships fired warning
shots in response to the destroyer’s intrusion. However, Britain denied that
account and said the warship was not in Russian waters. The U.K.’s Ministry of Defence said the ship was “conducting innocent passage through Ukrainian
territorial waters in accordance with international law.”
The papers included plans for the possible U.K.
military presence in Afghanistan and discussion about the potential Russian
reaction to the British warship HMS Defender’s travel through waters off the
Crimean coast last week, the BBC said.
