A Russian warship opened fire near a small British yacht in the English Channel - and now the two sides are telling completely different stories about what actually happened. The frigate "Admiral Gorshkov" fired several warning shots about 37 kilometres south of the Isle of Wight, outside British territorial waters.

On board were the retired British couple Jane and Alan Kelvey, whose account is almost comically calm for the situation. According to Jane, the frigate first sounded its horn five times, they turned slightly to show they'd seen it, and then "a minute later it sounded five times again, and right after that fired four to five shots". Asked whether they were scared, Jane joked that she just ducked and pulled a canvas hood over her head while her husband kept steering the yacht.

Moscow claims the yacht was approaching the warship dangerously and that the shots were fired after a failed attempt at radio contact, "in strict accordance with international maritime rules". London, for its part, says the yacht lost power and was drifting towards the ship in fog, so the shots were an attempt to prevent a collision, not a threat. A former British rear admiral assessed that it was most likely a misjudgement rather than a deliberate attack.

The context is what makes the story heavier than it looks. The incident comes days after British marines intercepted a Russian tanker from the so-called "shadow fleet" carrying sanctioned oil, and NATO sources claim Moscow ordered the frigate to shadow precisely those ships. The Balkans know well that in stories like this there's rarely an innocent side - when two worlds rub up against each other on one narrow sea, ordinary people in a small yacht are just witnesses caught between two of the big players' toys.