Britain warned Wednesday that it faces a growing threat of Russian aggression, after a Russian surveillance ship claimed to have passed off British shores for the second time in three months in the latest incident apparently designed to test Britain’s military capabilities.
British Defense Secretary John Healey told parliament that two Royal Navy ships were deployed for two days to monitor the passage of the Yantar. He described the Yantar as a Russian reconnaissance vessel used to gather intelligence and map Britain’s vital underwater infrastructure.
The incident is the latest in a series of attacks by Russian ships and aircraft around the UK and comes amid growing concerns in Europe about possible threats and sabotage to critical infrastructure, with Western intelligence agencies warning the Kremlin He warned that the palace intended to punish Europe for supporting Ukraine. When the Yantar was first discovered in British waters last year, a nearby British submarine was monitoring it, the defense minister said on Wednesday.
Authorities have linked Russian intelligence agencies to vandalism, arson and attacks across Europe in recent years, but maritime threats have sparked the greatest anxiety and prompted the boldest responses. Last week, NATO announced it would deploy warships, patrol aircraft and drones to protect critical infrastructure in the Baltic Sea after several undersea cables were severed. It appears that the ship is dragging its anchor along the seabed.
Suspicions have been raised about ships linked to Russia and China, with EU vessels surrounding a Chinese-flagged vessel for weeks and Finland seizing an oil tanker. Experts and officials said it could be part of Russian efforts to avoid Western sanctions.
Russian naval vessels have been conducting missions in the UK and elsewhere for many years. But on Wednesday, Healey provided an unusually large amount of detail into the usually murky world of military surveillance, highlighting growing concerns about Russian activity, particularly on the vital underwater cables linking Britain to continental Europe.
“Russia remains the most urgent and immediate threat to the United Kingdom,” Healey said Wednesday, adding that he wanted to send a message to Russian President Vladimir V. Putin. “‘We see you. We know what you’re doing. And we will not hesitate to take strong action to protect this country.”
Prime Minister Healy also told lawmakers he had changed the naval rules of engagement to allow two British ships to move closer and monitor the movements of the Yantar, which has left for Dutch waters.
Last November, the Yantar was spotted loitering over the UK’s vital undersea infrastructure, Mr Healy said. At that time, he added, he had authorized a Royal Navy submarine to surface near Yantar to demonstrate that it was under surveillance.
The British military said at the time that the Yantar escorted the frigate Admiral Golovko and the support tanker Vyazma before departing for the Mediterranean.
The Yantar, which has been in operation for about a decade, is a highly sophisticated reconnaissance vessel developed specifically by Russia’s Deep Sea Research Center to search for important underwater cables, said Justin Crump, CEO of the private intelligence company. , Sibylline, which has been monitoring the ship for several years. The vessel is equipped with two autonomous submersibles that can operate widely and remain largely undetected, he said.
Crump said that while the Yantar could engage in sabotage, it was more likely the ship would be used to find and wiretap cables for intelligence gathering and map locations for future operations.
“They put a lot of time, effort and money into developing this vessel, which has a lot of impressive capabilities in this area,” he said. “And we realized that to actually destroy a pipeline or cable, all you have to do is drag an anchor across the seabed.”
Intelligence agencies and experts say the cutting of the underwater cable amounts to a secret operation by the Kremlin, but actually uncovering evidence linking Russia to recent events has proven difficult. The Kremlin has denied any involvement in sabotage.
Finnish authorities on Wednesday announced that a preliminary investigation into the cutting of several important underwater cables last month was nearing completion, but said it was too early to say whether any one country was behind it. Investigators concluded that the captured oil tanker Eagle S, which had left a Russian port shortly before the cable was severed, dragged its anchor up to 100 kilometers across the ocean floor. Experts said it was highly unlikely that the behavior was a coincidence. .
Shipping experts have identified the Eagle S as belonging to Russia’s so-called shadow fleet, a group of aging tankers that Moscow uses to secretly transport crude oil around the world to fuel its war machine in Ukraine. The tanker and nine crew members are detained in Finland.
Experts say Russia has long shown interest in the West’s undersea cable networks. Over the past few years, Russian naval and merchant ships have spent time off the coast of Ireland, home to a bundle of undersea cables linking Europe and North America.
“What we don’t know is why they do what they do,” said Elisabeth Braw, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who studies Russian maritime activities.
“Are they sending a signal that we can sit on submarine cables as much as we want and you can’t do anything about it?” she asked. “Are they conducting reconnaissance for actions they might want to take in the future or some kind of hostile activity??
Braw said there was little the country could do about it because international maritime law did not prohibit Russian ships from operating in the area.
“Yantar’s activities could expand,” said Alistair Carmichael, a British member of parliament representing the Orkney and Shetland islands. But he added that he had been warning for almost two years about Russian ships operating around the Shetland Islands, north of mainland Scotland.
He told parliament: “This is a strategic threat to the whole of the UK, but it is particularly serious for island communities that rely on cables for digital and energy connectivity.”
Britain has been one of Ukraine’s strongest supporters since Russia invaded the country in 2022, and tensions between London and Moscow escalated last year when Ukraine fired British Storm Shadow missiles into Russia’s Kursk region.
Last October, amid rising tensions, Ken McCallum, director of Britain’s domestic security agency MI5, said Russian intelligence agents were on a mission to “wreak havoc on the streets of Britain and Europe”. He accused Russia’s military intelligence of engaging in “increasingly reckless and dangerous actions,” including instances of “arson, sabotage, etc.”
In April, British prosecutors indicted five men on behalf of Russia on charges of carrying out arson attacks on Ukrainian-linked businesses in the UK. And last fall, officials said fires at shipping facilities in Britain and Germany were caused by incendiary devices believed to have been planted by Russian agents.
The UK reports that Russian military action has become more evident in recent days. In September, it was revealed that British Typhoon jets had been scrambled to intercept two Russian Bear-F aircraft operating near British airspace. The Royal Navy also revealed that it had harbored four Russian ships, including a Kilo-class submarine, through the English Channel and the North Sea.
Johanna Remola contributed reporting from Helsinki.
