A Royal Navy frigate escorted two Russian corvettes which sailed through the English Channel on the night between April 15 and 16.
Type 23 frigate HMS Sutherland located the two Russian ships in the early hours of Friday morning as they sailed through the North Sea towards the Dover Straits.
The two Steregushchiy-class corvettes, Soobrazitelny and Boiky, were joined later in the afternoon by a Russian support tanker and an ocean-going tug, the Royal Navy said.
“As one of the Royal Navy’s high readiness units, HMS Sutherland is required to escort warships that approach the UK and this task is considered routine business for us,” Commander Andrew Canale, the Commanding Officer of HMS Sutherland, said.