Russia is taking “more risks” in its protection of the “shadow fleet”, as Moscow rewarded a warship commander for firing flares at a Danish helicopter, sparking a diplomatic incident.
A Russian warship, the corvette RFS , fired two emergency flares at a Danish air force helicopter while it was tracking the vessel.
The incident took place in international waters in the Baltic Sea close to Denmark on Monday. Flares are pyrotechnics usually used as a warning signal at sea.
Denmark’s ministry of defence said the Fennec helicopter was carrying out “routine photo coverage of a Russian [warship], which was in international waters off Gedser”. The statement said the Russian vessel fired two flares, one of which “passed within a short distance of the helicopter”.
Cindy Crawford’s son Presley Gerber dies in rehab aged 27
Presley Gerber, the son of supermodel Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber, has died at the age of 27.
The former model died on Sunday at a rehab facility, according to the Los Angeles county medical examiner. The cause of death has not been disclosed.
A closer look at the detail
Gerber, who was the eldest child of the celebrity couple, and brother of model Kaia Gerber, had spoken openly about his mental health and drug use in recent years.
His sister mentioned his “decade-long struggle with drug addiction” in the September 2026 issue of .
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Mental health struggles
Having struggled with mental health, depression and some other things that come along with that, I think that whether I help one person or a hundred people get out of that place that I was in at one point in my life, that’s all I need to do.
Speaking to podcast in 2023, Gerber hoped that sharing his story would help others suffering with mental health issues.
Life in the limelight
- Gerber had been a model like his mother and younger sister Kaia, making his runway debut for Italian label Moschino aged just 16.
- He went on to model for brands including Burberry, Dolce & Gabbana, and Bottega Veneta.
- Gerber posted a video about undergoing drug withdrawal treatment in the months before his death, though the cause of his death was not disclosed.
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Family asks for privacy
- Allie Jenkins, a representative for Crawford and her husband Rande Gerber, told : “The family is asking for privacy during this very difficult and painful time.”
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Badenoch pledges to bring back tax-free shopping for tourists
Kemi Badenoch has promised to revive a tax-free shopping scheme for tourists by reversing a post-Brexit rule change.
The decision to scrap the VAT refund scheme for international visitors in 2021 left the UK “less competitive” than many other European holiday destinations as the country left the EU, the Tories said.
Business chiefs hail ‘pro-growth’ policy change
Badenoch said the policy was letting down businesses.
Business chiefs, including the bosses of Fortnum & Mason and Paul Smith, hailed the policy change as “pro-growth” and “pro-jobs”.
Losing out to ‘rival cities’
We have iconic retailers, inventive designers and brilliant manufacturers, but they are being let down by a tax policy that is chasing their customers away. Holidaymakers are choosing rival cities in other countries for the simple reason that it saves them money.
Kemi badenoch, lEADER OF THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY
A closer look at the detail
- Spending by visitors remains 8 per cent lower than before the pandemic – despite numbers returning to pre-Covid levels, according to 2024 estimates from tourism agency VisitBritain.
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Treasury: ‘UK visitors can claim VAT’
Almost every European country offers tax-free shopping for tourists, except the UK – although the minimum spend varies.
A Treasury spokesperson said “visitors can still claim VAT relief where the items purchased are shipped directly to their home country as exports” and that it is working to “welcome 50 million international visitors a year to the UK by 2030”.
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All the latest Earl Spencer revelations as royal row continues
A war of words has broken out after Earl Spencer made a series of damning claims about the King in a new memoir about his sister, Diana, Princess of Wales.
Swan Song: Diana, My Sister is due to be published on Tuesday. Here are some key claims made in excerpts from the book released so far.
‘We’ll forget her soon enough’
Spencer claims he and Charles argued over arrangements for his sister’s funeral in 1997 and the King told him: “Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough”.
Spencer has also said he believes the relationship between the press and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex “echoes” the way the media treated his sister.
Other key claims made
- Spencer has written of how Charles’s phone call following the car crash in 1997 “sounded strangely matter-of-fact”.
- “[Charles] sounded giddily elated – like a lottery winner, I remember thinking at the time,” Spencer writes.
- In another extract, Spencer told of his memories of the funeral, and his concern for Harry, after he observed a “lack of obvious care”.
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While we do not comment on books as a matter of principle, His Majesty is mindful that the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory in ways others do not recognise, even many years after such a loss.
Buckingham Palace spokesman
King accused of gaslighting
Spencer has accused the King of gaslighting him and called his response a “rather poor imitation of the ‘recollections may vary’ quote” – the late Queen’s response to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s allegations in their Oprah Winfrey interview, The Mail on Sunday reports.
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Danish media reported concerns that the flare narrowly passed the helicopter, which had its door open in order to take photos. Chief of the air force, Maj-Gen Jan Dam, told the pyrotechnic “could have hit someone”.
Danish foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen branded the confrontation “completely unacceptable” and said Russia’s ambassador Vladimir Barbin had been summoned to discuss the incident involving “so-called flares”.
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen accused Russia of “behaving increasingly aggressively” and trying to “intimidate us”.
She added: “Russia is testing Nato and challenging it… Our response is to stand even more closely together and strengthen the defence of Denmark and Europe.”
The Russian ambassador initially responded by stating Moscow would “thoroughly investigate” the incident, while accusing Danish helicopters of making “dangerous manoeuvres”.
However, on Wednesday the commander of the warship was awarded a medal “for military distinction”. In a Telegram post seen by this paper, Russian defence minister Andrei Belousov said the reward was for the commander’s “skillful and decisive actions in preventing a provocation by a Danish air force helicopter”.
A vital maritime path for Russia’s shadow fleet
It is not known why the Russian warship was passing close to Denmark at the time, or if it was escorting a tanker from the country’s shadow fleet – sanctioned vessels used by Russia to transport lucrative oil exports under another country’s flag. Russia has been increasingly diverting warships to escort shadow fleet vessels around the UK.
However, the route is one commonly used by these tankers, with the waters around Denmark operating as a chokehold in the Baltic Sea for vessels travelling from the Russian ports of Ust-Luga and Primorsk in the Gulf of Finland.
Danish news site TV2 reported that “ship data shows that two Danish naval vessels and a Russian shadow fleet ship were south-east of Falster at the time”, a location close to Gedser.
The , a Steregushchiy-class corvette, was previously tailed by the Royal Navy’s HMS escorting the sanctioned oil tanker MV through the English Channel in March.
The UK said at the time the two Russian ships separated at the western end of the Channel, with the tanker sailing into the Atlantic, while the Navy tracked the back eastwards through the Channel.
“Sanctions on the shadow fleet are hitting where it hurts – Russia’s ability to keep oil moving. Moscow is taking greater risks to protect that trade and each new confrontation at sea raises the chance of escalation,” said Gonzalo Saiz, a research fellow at the defence and security think-tank Royal United Services Institute.
“European governments take the risk of escalation very seriously when they consider detaining a shadow fleet tanker. Moscow knows that and its threats are designed to make every enforcement decision feel like a potential confrontation.”
Increasing escalation
The Denmark incident follows the firing of warning shots by the at a civilian British boat this summer, two days after the Navy boarded a sanctioned shadow fleet vessel in the Channel for the first time. Other shadow fleet vessels have been boarded under the European Union’s Operation Irini, which included seizing MV Sun tanker in the Mediterranean this summer.
Dr Trevelyan Wing, a researcher at the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Geopolitics, said the increasing action from the UK and allies are a sign these countries are raising “the stakes, and costs” for Russia, but this in turn means “Moscow appears to be pushing back”.
The tensions in the Baltic Sea this week are the result of Russia’s “escalatory actions, and indicate Moscow’s growing irritation”, he added.
Dr Wing said Moscow is “dependent” on the shadow fleet to get three-quarters its oil “past Western scrutiny” and on to other global markets and called it a “critical source of revenue for the Kremlin”, the funds from which are funnelled to prop up Russia’s war against Ukraine.
The altercation between Russia and Denmark could see a shift in how the Scandinavian country approaches the shadow fleet problem.
“So far, Copenhagen has largely refrained from interfering directly with shadow fleet vessels… it will be interesting to see if recent events will push the country into adopting a more robust policy for dealing with the shadow fleet, as other Nato allies have done.”
The passage of shadow fleet vessels through the Baltic Sea and on to other ports means many of these illicit tankers pass by the UK, once they have traversed the waters separating Denmark and Norway. Exclusive data shared with this paper also exposed how more than 170 “shadow fleet” vessels passed near or through UK waters this summer, with a Russian presence in the English Channel almost every day this summer.