Undersea cables and pipelines were targeted by three Russian submarines in a covert operation in the Atlantic north of the U.K., according to the British Government.
Defence secretary John Healey held a press conference in Downing Street today (Thursday) where he revealed that over the past month Britain and allies had been watching over a Russian Akula-class submarine and two other specialist submarines from GUGI, the Russian Ministry of Defence’s deep-sea research programme.
In response to the presence of the Russian vessels the Royal Navy had deployed Type 23 frigate HMS St Albans, RFA Tidespring, Merlin helicopters and the RAF had supplied P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft.
At the press conference Mr Healey said: “Last November I outlined how these units… are vessels directed by President Putin to conduct hybrid warfare activities against the U.K. and our allies, specifically around critical undersea infrastructure [CUI].”
He added: “For the first time we are releasing images of the GUGI bases and those vessels. They are designed to survey our infrastructure during peacetime and sabotage it during war.”
He went on: “I deployed our armed forces to track and deter any malign activity by these vessels.”
Mr Healey revealed the current assumption was that deploying the Akula-class boat had probably been intended as a decoy to distract from the two Gugi submarines as they spent time over CUI.
The defence secretary said the submarines, which were “monitored 24/7” had now left U.K. waters and that there was so far no evidence of any damage to U.K. infrastructure in the Atlantic, although this would be confirmed by ongoing inspections.
He said: “Our Armed Forces left them in no doubt that they were being monitored, that their movements were not covert as President Putin planned, and that their attempted secret operation had been exposed.”
In a direct message to Russia Mr Healey added: “We see your activity over our cables and our pipelines, and you should know that any attempt to damage them will not be tolerated and will have serious consequences.”
- You can read more details on the U.K. Government website