According to The Daily Telegraph, the idea was the cause of a dispute between the kingdom’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and Defence Minister Ben Wallace
On Thursday, the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph, citing a source in the Kingdom’s defence ministry, reported that the final decision on the passage of the British destroyer HMS Defender near the coast of Crimea was left to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and was communicated to the command of the ship two days before the incident in the Black Sea.
According to him, the idea of the Defender passage was the cause of a dispute between Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, who, according to the paper, suggested such a route. According to the paper, the foreign minister feared that Moscow could allegedly use the incident to its advantage and warned against it.
“The whole dispute was between Raab and Wallace, then it went to the prime minister to make a decision. A decision was sent to Defender on Monday that he should make a peaceful passage through these waters”, – a source told the publication.
According to TASS, Johnson on Thursday dodged a question about whether he had ordered the destroyer to pass near the Crimean coast. A spokesman for the prime minister, who was asked the same question, added that he would not discuss the subject of “operational military decision-making”.
However, government officials told The Daily Telegraph that there was no disagreement in the cabinet over the alleged mission and that such allegations were unfounded. The article quoted a source in the Ministry of Defence as saying: “We are all one big family”. A Foreign Ministry source, on the other hand, said Raab “supports Defender’s right to peaceful passage through Ukrainian waters”.