British Foreign Office: Russia may target Black Sea civilian shipping

British Intelligence reveals Russia may use sea mines to attack civilian vessels in the Black Sea on the approaches to Ukrainian ports.

This was reported by the British Foreign Office, citing its Intelligence Service.

In this way, Russia wants to curb the export of Ukrainian grain.

Russia almost certainly wants to avoid openly sinking civilian vessels and instead falsely accuses Ukraine of any attacks on ships in the Black Sea.

"By releasing our assessment of this intelligence, the UK seeks to expose Russia’s tactics to deter any such incident from occurring," the statement reads.

The UK has put in place intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities to monitor Russian activity in the Black Sea. These capabilities will help us to attribute and call out any further Russian attacks on civilian shipping or infrastructure.

It will be recalled that recently, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that Russians attacked civilian ships in the Black Sea with missiles on August 24, but Ukrainian air defence repelled the attack.