In your briefing today:

📣 A retired couple have recalled the “scary” moment a Russian warship fired warning shots to ward them away in the English Channel. They denied their yacht was on a collision course with the Russian frigate, the Admiral Grigorovich.

The incident, although described as “isolated” by the Ministry of Defence, has sparked alarm about Russian operations in the waters off the United Kingdom. (Independent)

📣 The UK's armed forces will have to "dial back" training and operations if they do not receive more cash than is currently being offered, the chief of the defence staff has warned.

Sir Richard Knighton said the government's Defence Investment Plan (DIP) did not include enough funding to support "day-to-day activities" in the short term.

The full plan has yet to be published after the resignation of Defence Secretary John Healey last week, who delivered his resignation statement in the Commons yesterday. He said his departure had been “necessary in securing the future of Britain’s armed forces and our alliances.” (BBC)

📣 The crisis-hit University of Dundee will go bust by 2028 unless it goes ahead with plans to cut a further 190 jobs, its management has claimed. The University has already seen 645 roles cut in recent years as it deals with a financial crisis, but now needs to find another £20 million in savings. (Herald)

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📣 The teenage killers of Kayden Moy could have been stopped long ago, it’s being claimed, after they gained notoriety for a string of attacks in East Kilbride. (Daily Record)

📣 John Lewis is to spend £20 million revamping its Glasgow store in the city’s Buchanan Galleries. (Guardian)

📣 Solicitor General Ruth Charteris KC is to become Scotland’s next Lord Advocate, after Dorothy Bain announced her intention to stand down last month. Brian Gill KC will take up Charteris’s old role, both pending parliamentary approval. (Holyrood)

📣 A new exhibition will celebrate Scottish rain, featuring a range of exhibits, from Minnie the Minx to Robert Burns, to examine the nation’s relationship with precipitation. (Guardian)

📣 Donald Trump says he wants to put Iran in the “rearview mirror” although he’s still yet to release details of the peace deal he says has been signed with Iran. (Independent)

📣 Reform is expecting to lose the Makerfield by-election, according to a Reform UK board member. (Independent)

📣 The UK’s rate of inflation remained steady at 2.8%, figures released this morning show, despite expectations the rate would rise. (BBC)

📣 TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson has cancer, he has revealed. In an episode of Clarkson’s Farm, released on Prime TV overnight, the presenter says he has an “aggressive” but unspecified cancer, for which he has been receiving treatment. (Mirror) (Mail)

⚽️ Ah, Lionel Messi. The great man only went and bagged a hat-trick, his first World Cup triple, in his sixth finals, aged 38, as Argentina beat Algeria 3-0.

Yes, Algeria’s dodgy keeper Luca Zidane should probably have done better with two. But the third was a peach, and so much else of what the talismanic forward did was special. And he appears to love doing it, too.

We must, now, be watching his last appearance on the world stage: let’s enjoy it while it lasts. (BBC report & highlights)

It’s been a good day for superstar strikers. Since we last spoke…

⚽️ Fixtures today / early tomorrow:

🗣️ Yesterday, in the hours after a Russian warship fired warning shots at a pensioner’s yacht in the English Channel, two former government defence ministers were giving their resignation statements in the House of Commons.

The two events weren’t directly related, of course: John Healey resigned as Defence Secretary last week over the government’s reluctance to change its spending priorities and devote more to the armed forces. His junior minister, Al Carns, had gone shortly afterwards for the same reason.

But precisely the reason the Russian frigate Admiral Grigorovich was in the channel was the conflict in Europe and Britain’s reaction to it: sanctions that saw UK forces, on Sunday night, board and seize a “dark fleet” tanker attempting to evade sanctions on Russia.

The Admiral Grigorovich is there, in international waters, to deter any further action.

All that came a day after two men were convicted of conspiracy to commit arson on properties linked to Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Behind them was a figure the BBC has identified as "El Money" — a Russian-speaking handler, potentially Evgeny Lyukshin, a 23-year-old Russian diplomat. He recruited through Telegram. He remains at large.

We should not be sensationalist. Shots fired do not mean war. Reports today suggest that, perhaps, the Russian warship was within its rights to warn off a recreational yacht that hadn’t gone a great deal to avoid coming very close (it changed course by only a couple of degrees after initial warnings, the Telegraph reports).

Despite the magnificent sight of a few Fleet Street admirals setting sail under full righteous anger, it may be this was a simple nautical incident.

But we can hold that thought while also agreeing Russia may not deserve the benefit of the doubt, given its likely involvement in those arson attacks, previous attacks on targets in London, countless cyber-attacks - much of which go unreported - and, of course, the Salisbury poisonings, which the UK thinks were personally authorised by Vladimir Putin.

And Scotland doesn’t get to sit this out. Indeed, minds should be focused on the increasing Russian hostility.

Scotland hosts Faslane - the UK's nuclear submarine base, and one of its most sensitive pieces of land. Scotland is also home to the bulk of the UK’s North Sea oil and gas infrastructure, while undersea cables carrying power and data run through Scottish waters. Russia has been busy conducting some sort of “covert” action over those cables and pipelines in recent months.

And, of course, Scotland sits directly on the northern sea routes used by Russia's Northern Fleet.

The argument that this kind of aggression is someone else's problem is becoming harder to make - and explains why discussion of defence, and how to pay for it, is at the top of the national agenda.

Which brings us back to those speeches in the House of Commons yesterday. Quentin Letts offers a typically acerbic sketch in today’s Mail, where he paints a picture of the two men setting their aim on Chancellor Rachel Reeves, and the Treasury.

“Mr Healey’s was the more subtle, regretful and therefore deadly attack,” writes Letts. “It scored a direct hit on Rachel Reeves. Our enemies, said Mr Healey, ‘don’t follow timetables set by the Treasury’.”

The question is whether there is a credible response. This week, Starmer has been at the G7 in Évian - described as possibly being his last summit as Prime Minister. He returns with vital, long-term spending decisions for the nation’s defence still pending, a parliamentary party in revolt, and no obvious appetite at the Treasury for a change of course.

It’s not a strong foundation for decisive action.

Meanwhile, Russia, for its part, does not appear to be waiting to find out what the UK does next. For businesses, port operators, energy firms and others across Scotland with assets that fall within Russia's sphere of interest, the question worth sitting with is whether the deterrent they might be counting on is actually there.

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