Classified Ministry of Defence documents found at bus stop

Classified Ministry of Defence documents containing details about HMS Defender and therefore the British military are found at a stop in Kent.

One set of documents discusses the likely Russian reaction to the ship’s passage through Ukrainian waters off the Crimea coast on Wednesday.

Another details plans for a possible UK military presence in Afghanistan after the US-led Nato operation there ends.

The government said an investigation had been launched.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said it’s investigating “an incident during which sensitive defence papers were recovered by a member of the public”. The MoD employee concerned reported the loss at the time, it said.

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The documents, almost 50 pages altogether , were found during a soggy heap behind a stop in Kent early Tuesday morning.

A member of the general public , who wishes to stay anonymous, contacted the BBC when he realised the sensitive nature of the contents.

The BBC believes the documents, which include emails and PowerPoint presentations, originated within the office of a senior official at the MoD.

The documents concerning the Royal Navy’s Type 45 destroyer, HMS Defender, show that a mission described by the MoD as an “innocent passage through Ukrainian territorial waters”, with guns covered and therefore the ship’s helicopter stowed in its hangar, was conducted within the expectation that Russia might respond aggressively.

On Wednesday quite 20 Russian aircraft and two coastguard ships shadowed the warship because it sailed about 12 miles (19km) off Crimea’s coast.

Moscow’s defence ministry said a patrol boat fired warning shots and a jet dropped bombs within the destroyer’s path but the united kingdom government rejected this account, denying any warning shots had been fired.

The mission, dubbed “Op Ditroite”, was the topic of high-level discussions as late as Monday, the documents show, with officials speculating about Russia’s reaction if HMS Defender sailed on the brink of Crimea.

“What can we understand about the possible ‘welcome party’…?” asked a politician at Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ), the UK’s tri-service headquarters at Northwood.

Recent interactions within the eastern Mediterranean between Russian forces and a Carrier Strike Group led by HMS Queen Elizabeth had been unremarkable and “in line with expectations”, the document said.

But officials knew this was close to change.

“Following the transition from defence engagement activity to operational activity, it’s highly likely that RFN (Russian navy) and VKS (Russian air force) interactions will become more frequent and assertive,” one presentation warned.

Ministry of Defence document
A series of slides prepared at PJHQ shows two routeing options, one described as “a safe and professional direct transit from Odessa to Batumi”, including a brief stretch through a “Traffic Separation Scheme” (TSS) on the brink of the south-west tip of Crimea.

This route, one slide concluded, would “provide a chance to interact with the Ukrainian government… in what the united kingdom recognises as Ukrainian body of water .”

Three potential Russian responses were outlined, from “safe and professional” to “neither safe nor professional”.

In the event, Russia chose to react aggressively, with radio warnings, coastguard vessels closing to within 100 metres and repeated buzzing by warplanes.

An alternative route was considered, which might have kept HMS Defender well faraway from contested waters.

This would have avoided confrontation, the presentation noted, but ran the danger of being portrayed by Russia as evidence of “the UK being scared/running away”, allowing Russia to say that the united kingdom had belatedly accepted Moscow’s claim to Crimean body of water .

An MoD presentation
“As the general public would expect, the Ministry of Defence plans carefully,” an MoD spokesperson said.

“As a matter of routine, that has analysing all the potential factors affecting operational decisions.”

Alongside the military planning, officials anticipated competing versions of events.

“We have a robust , legitimate narrative”, they said, noting that the presence of the embedded journalists (from the BBC and Daily Mail) on board the destroyer “provides an option for independent verification of HMS Defender’s action”.

Following the controversy generated by HMS Defender’s mission, the documents discovered in Kent confirm that passage through the TSS was a calculated decision by British government to form a show of support for Ukraine, despite the possible risks involved.

Was this gunboat diplomacy?

It was certainly the utilization of a warship in pursuit of diplomatic goals. But its primary objective wasn’t to “poke the Russian bear” (a phrase and sentiment conspicuously absent from the documents). This was all about freedom of navigation and a transparent endorsement of Ukraine’s sovereignty, following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.