The Russians would also have been unhappy with the recent high-profile visits made by a number of British dignitaries to Ukraine as part of the defence cooperation pact Britain agreed with Ukraine last year, which will soon result in Britain transferring two Royal Navy minesweepers to the Ukrainian navy.
The Kremlin was upset that a British warship, the Type-45 destroyer HMS Defender, should choose to chart a course through waters Russia has laid claim to following its invasion and illegal annexation of what was formerly the Ukraine-controlled Crimea Peninsula in 2014.
Only last week Russian sensitivities over Ukraine sparked a diplomatic spat between London and Moscow over the presence of a Royal Navy warship in the Black Sea which had been deployed as a gesture of solidarity with Ukraine’s democratically-elected government. For a country whose very existence is under constant threat from its powerful Russian neighbour, Ukraine’s qualification for the quarter-finals of Euro 2020 demonstrates how sporting prowess can be a powerful antidote to tyrannical behaviour.
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