Russia’s ambassador to the United Kingdom has warned that Britain is “too deep” in the Ukraine war, bringing the NATO member “up to the line” of “no return” in terms of a possible conflict with Moscow.
In an interview with Sky News, the Russian ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, as ambassadors to the British royal court are formally known, claimed that evidence that the British military assisted a Ukrainian drone attack on his country’s Black Sea Fleet and was involved in blowing up the Nord Stream gas pipelines to Germany would become public “pretty soon”, and had already been passed to the British government.
“It is dangerous because it escalates the situation,” Ambassador Andrey Kelin said of Britain’s involvement in the Russo-Ukrainian war, which has arguably been going on since Russia’s intervention in the Euromaidan coup of 2014 but has certainly had the character of a full-blown war since February 2022, when Russian forces invaded Ukraine from the north, east, and south.
“It can bring us up to the line of I would say no return, return is always possible. But anyway, we should avoid escalation,” Yelin added, somewhat cryptically.
“And this is a warning actually that Britain is too deep in this conflict. It means the situation is becoming more and more dangerous.”
The United Kingdom under Boris Johnson, his short-lived successor Liz Truss, and the recently-installed Rishi Sunak has taken on one of the most belligerent stances of any NATO member towards Russia, at the same end of the spectrum as the likes of Poland, which has shipped tanks to Ukraine, rather than the likes of Turkey, which has left its relationship with Russia more or less unchanged and even sought to take advantage of its allies’ sanctions war with Russia to strengthen its energy partnership with the Kremlin.
British support for Ukraine has included providing funds and military materiel to the Eastern European country and training Ukrainian soldiers, including on British soil.
Nevertheless, a spokesman for the British government insists that Russian allegations of British involvement in the Nord Stream explosions and the Black Sea Fleet drone attack are untrue and “clearly designed to distract attention from Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine; Russia’s losses on the battlefield and its bombing of civilian populations and energy infrastructure without any regard for international law and the loss of innocent life.”
“We do not plan to give a running commentary on these allegations; it is no secret that the United Kingdom has taken a public lead in our support to Ukraine — this has been enduring since Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014,” the spokesman added.
Perhaps the most dangerous direct encounter between the Russian and British militaries over the course of the war came last month, when a Russian warplane released a missile in the vicinity of a Royal Air Force (RAF) Rivet Joint surveillance aircraft flying over the Black Sea — a supposed “malfunction” widely interpreted as a warning for the British to keep their distance from the conflict zone.