Earlier on Tuesday, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard, the Chief of the Defence Staff, told the Lords’ international relations and defence committee that operational activity and exercises would “come under pressure” without more money.
He suggested that the current settlement would leave Britain’s soldiers less prepared because their training would be cut back.
Sir Richard said: “The thing that I’m most concerned about is the level of day-to-day activity funding, the resource departmental expenditure limit, because that funds operational activity and drives exercises and training.
“Those are the things that make sure the men and women of our Armed Forces are as ready as they can be with the equipment that they have got today, and without changes to the settlement, as John Healey set out, then those areas will come under pressure.”
The incident in the Channel is not the first time a Russian vessel has fired on a ship from the UK.
In 2021, the Russian defence ministry claimed to have fired warning shots and dropped bombs near a Royal Navy warship in the Black Sea.
The MoD denied that any shots had been fired, insisting that HMS Defender, a destroyer, had been “conducting innocent passage” through Ukrainian territorial waters.