A warship controlled by Vladimir Putin’s forces may have fired a machine gun along with flares during a tense encounter with a German helicopter, a new report claims.
image reported that the Russian warship ‘Merkury’, a 104.5 m (343 ft) long corvette, fired signal munition flares as a German NH-90 SeaLion helicopter approached during the crash, which was reported to earlier this week.
SeaLion was investigating the Merkury amid suspicions that it was part of Russia’s so-called “Shadow Fleet,” a collection of marine vessels used to evade international sanctions.
The newspaper reported that as the SeaLion approached an altitude of 4,000 feet (300 m), shots were fired with signal munitions at a distance of approximately four nautical miles (7.4 km), before the Russian ship fired its machine gun in the water.
The Russian ship reportedly apologized for the incident, but little else is known about the incident.
The German government has so far declined to comment, and Bild reported that defense officials are investigating the incident as top secret.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock mentioned the incident at a NATO meeting but gave no further details.
NATO is currently carrying out increased surveillance in the Baltic Sea to prevent hybrid attacks on oil pipelines and data cables by Russia and its supporters.
Bild reported that the Russian warship ‘Merkury’ (pictured) fired at a German helicopter
Germany sent an NH-0 SeaLion to investigate a possible Shadow Fleet ship
Tensions between the West and Vladimir Putin’s Russia (pictured) have risen significantly in recent months.
The Baltic Sea borders eight NATO countries and Russia.
There have been at least three incidents of possible sabotage of the approximately 40 critical telecommunications cables and gas pipelines that run along its relatively shallow seabed since 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine.
“NATO is stepping up patrols… allies are investing in innovative technologies that can help better protect these assets,” Commander Arlo Abrahamson, spokesman for NATO Allied Maritime Command, said previously.
However, the ease with which a ship’s anchor can cut a cable, coupled with the often treacherous sea conditions, makes actual prevention of such attacks almost impossible.
Tensions between Russia and the West have risen so much in recent weeks that the defense chiefs of Russia and the United States held a rare phone call last week.
Direct contact between Moscow and Washington has all but ceased to exist amid the Russian military offensive against Ukraine, and the Kremlin has said it considers the United States a direct participant in the conflict.
The call between Russia’s Chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, and the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Charles Brown, occurred on November 27 and was carried out at the request of the Russian side, both said. Moscow like Washington.
“The leaders discussed a range of global and regional security issues, including the ongoing conflict in Ukraine,” Brown’s spokesman told AFP.
A Yars intercontinental ballistic missile is tested as part of Russia’s nuclear exercises from a launch site in Plesetsk, northwest Russia.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now a senior Kremlin security official, pictured with Vladimir Putin.
It was the first call between the pair since Brown took office in October 2023.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Gerasimov had briefed Brown on Russian military exercises in the eastern Mediterranean, announced as Moscow carries out airstrikes to support its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in quelling an Islamist-led rebellion.
“This information was provided with the aim of preventing possible incidents related to the presence of US and NATO ships near the area of the Russian exercises,” he said in a statement on Telegram.
He did not mention Ukraine or any other topic.
Citing a US military spokesman, the New York Times reported that the two discussed Russia’s new Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile.
Brown also expressed US concern over the deployment of North Korean troops to support the Russian military on the battlefield, CNN reported.
Despite the West’s reluctance to comment on the matter for fear of further escalation, Russia has had no such qualms about using intense language to stoke tensions.
Former Russian president and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev even declared late last month that NATO and the United States are in “total war” with Russia.
Medvedev declared that the West crossed “all red lines” and is now “at war with Russia.”
Putin’s close ally, who now serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said every Ukrainian attack on Russian territory with Western weapons would be met with a response.
“It will not go unnoticed… It will change the rules of engagement; it is proof that NATO and Washington and other participants in the alliance are not simply engaging in a hybrid war, but a war in every sense of the word against our country.
“The negotiations are a long way off, events like this could set those negotiations back even further,” he told Saudi Arabia’s Al-Arabiya.
‘Any attack against Russia is unequivocally unacceptable. What happened was a crossing of all red lines.”