Russia Accuses UK of Overseeing 'Vast Majority' of Kyiv's Black Sea Attacks

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) blamed the United Kingdom for facilitating the "vast majority" of Ukraine's attacks on Crimea.

In a video statement distributed by the FSB on Thursday, a Russian intelligence officer said that the agency "has regularly received information about the participation of Western intelligence services, primarily British, in the training of Ukrainian special forces."

"We have established the supervisory role of British special forces in the vast majority of terrorist and sabotage actions against ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and the Crimean Peninsula," the Kremlin office said, according to a report by the Russian state-operated news agency Tass.

The FSB did not offer any evidence to back up their claims, and Newsweek reached out to the office of U.K. Secretary of State for Defense Grant Shapps via email on Thursday for comment.

Ukraine has ramped up attacks against Crimea and Russia's Black Sea Fleet in recent months, making a notable dent in Moscow's naval fleet stationed around the peninsula.

In addition to Russia's navy, Ukraine has attacked key military structure throughout Crimea, which served as a launching pad for Moscow's full scale invasion in February 2022.

Ukraine has also targeted infrastructure like the Kerch Bridge, which connects Crimea to mainland Russia. Kyiv's attacks on the bridge has interrupted the flow of traffic and supplies across the bridge on two different occasions, and a report earlier this month by Ukraine's military intelligence teased a third attack within the "first half of 2024."

Ukraine has vowed that the war cannot end until Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, is returned to Kyiv's control.

According to the FSB, British forces helped train Ukraine's troops and supplied Kyiv with reconnaissance equipment and "new types" of weapons and explosives.

"The British intelligence services do not bother planning deeply thought-out actions and detailed operations, much less care about the safety of the personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine," the FSB officer said, per Tass.

Moscow has responded to Ukraine's attacks by ramping up its air defense capabilities in the Black Sea and taking deterrent measures to decoy its navy fleet with black paint to make the warships appear like a "less appealing" target. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu also announced last week that the Black Sea Fleet would be getting a boost by the end of the year, including three new missile carriers.

"To increase the combat potential of the Navy, we continue to equip it with ships that carry long-range precision weapons," Shoigu said during a conference call with Russia's military, acknowledging that the fleet had suffered a "bad month" in March.

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