The British government remains far too comfortable with the presence of Russian illicit finance on its soil. However, on Wednesday, Britain educated the Biden administration on how to deal with Russian aggression.

The lesson came via the Royal Navy’s deployment of its Type-45 air defense destroyer, the HMS Defender, within 12 nautical miles of the Crimean coast. Twelve miles marks the delineation point between international waters and sovereign waters. Since its military seizure of Crimea in 2014, Russia has asserted that the territory is Russian. Put another way, that the 12 miles of water surrounding Crimea are as Russian as the 12 miles of water off Vladimir Putin’s home city, St. Petersburg. The point of this naval deployment was to reinforce the British government’s, and international community’s, contention that Crimea is Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory. It’s a point that requires emphasis.