Vigilance can authoritatively report that the Royal Navy’s Fleet Ready Escort, the Type 42 destroyer HMS York, based in Portsmouth, on Monday met with the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov in international waters off the east coast of Scotland.
A Royal Navy source said the 65,000 ton carrier, with other warships and support vessels, is thought to be en route to the Mediterranean on exercise. The aircraft carrier anchored outside British territorial waters some 30 miles off the Moray Firth where she was thought to have taken advantage of the relative shelter to avoid the worst of current bad weather in theNorth Sea.
HMS York is currently the designated Royal Navy’s Fleet Ready Escort (FRE), tasked to provide contingency capability in UK home waters. The FRE is designed to be available for any tasking, from evacuation or escort duties, or to support counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics or Other Government Departments.
