Reds on the seabed: countering Russian activity in UK waters
To guard against potential sabotage and disruption, the government has to be clear-sighted about Vladimir Putin and its power to react and deter
On Wednesday, the Defence Secretary, John Healey, gave a statement to the House of Commons with the deliciously Cold War-redolent title “Russian Maritime Activity and UK Response”. He told MPs that a Russian spy ship, the Yantar, had entered the North Sea earlier in the week for the purposes of “gathering intelligence and mapping the UK’s critical underwater infrastructure”, and was being closely monitored by two Royal Navy warships, HMS Somerset, a Type 23 frigate, and the offshore patrol vessel HMS Tyne. The Ministry of Defence viewed the Yantar’s presence as sufficiently significant that he had “changed the Royal Navy’s rules of engagement so that our warships can get closer and better track Yantar”.
(I spoke to Steve Holden on LBC News about this earlier in the week. You can listen here, from 1.21.45 onwards.)
This was not the Yantar’s first appearance in or near British waters. She had been observed “loitering over UK critical undersea infrastructure” in November last year, when the response had been even stronger: the Yantar had been shadowed by RAF maritime patrol aircraft, the minesweeper HMS Cattistock, HMS Tyne and RFA Proteus, a multi-role ocean surveillance ship operated by the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. In addition, Healey had at that time “authorised a Royal Navy submarine to surface close to Yantar—strictly as a deterrent measure—to make it clear that we had been covertly monitoring its every move”.
What is going on here? Why is the government so concerned with the presence of a Russian vessel near the coast of the United Kingdom? The Yantar is a special purpose intelligence collection ship operated by the Russian Navy’s Main Directorate of Deep-Sea Research, one of its most secretive units, tasked with surveillance and, if necessary, sabotage of critical infrastructure on the seabed. She can deploy autonomous underwater vehicles to a depth of 20,000 feet to sever underwater cables and pipelines, and has been observed near such communications links in the eastern Mediterranean, near Rio de Janeiro, off the west coast of Ireland and in the Irish Sea.
These cables are a lifeline. Around 60 of them connect the United Kingdom to the rest of the world and carry 99 per cent of our internet capacity, including diplomatic and military communications as well as commercial traffic such as financial transactions. They are higher capacity, more cost-effective and more reliable than using satellite networks, but for that very reason they represent a key strategic, economic and commercial vulnerability. The Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy had recognised the importance of these undersea cables and is currently conducting an inquiry into their resilience and protection.
Last November, two undersea links in the Baltic Sea, the BCS East-West Interlink between Lithuania and Sweden and the C-Lion1 cable between Finland and Germany, suffered damage and were out of action for a time, significantly disrupting telecommunications. The German Minister of Defence, Boris Pistorius, attributed the failure to sabotage, arguing that “no-one believes that the cables were accidentally damaged”. The governments of Russia and China denied any knowledge or involvement in the failure of the cables, and American intelligence sources have indicated the damage was not a deliberate act, but authorities in Europe have not ruled out sabotage.
Whether or not the cables underneath the Baltic Sea were the subject of deliberate disruption, these links are manifestly a significant vulnerability, and the fact that a Russian intelligence-gathering vessel with the ability to deploy mini-submarines to such a depth has repeatedly been sighted near such cable networks indicates they are a potential target; it would be astonishing if they were not.
John Healey told the House of Commons that the activities of the Yantar represented growing Russian aggression and recklessness, and had a clear message for Vladimir Putin:
We see you, we know what you are doing, and we will not shy away from robust action to protect this country. With our NATO allies, we are strengthening our response to ensure that Russian ships and aircraft cannot operate in secrecy near the UK or near NATO territory.
In response, the Shadow Defence Secretary, James Cartlidge, gave the Opposition’s full support for Healey’s robust words.
I specifically welcome the change to the Royal Navy’s rules of engagement. That sends a powerful signal to Putin that we will not be intimidated and that if his aim is to keep pushing the boundaries of malign activity in our waters and those proximate to us, we will respond. I confirm that the Government will have the full backing of His Majesty’s Opposition in doing so. We stand shoulder to shoulder with the Government on Ukraine and we stand shoulder to shoulder with them on deterring the wider Russian threat that he has outlined today.
Cartlidge did go on to apply gentle pressure on the government. Sending a “powerful signal” to the Russian president requires resources, and the Shadow Defence Secretary returned to the issue of increasing spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP. This was a commitment made by the previous Conservative administration; Sir Keir Starmer and his ministers have echoed it, but have been slippery and evasive on setting a timeframe for the increase, saying only that the Strategic Defence Review, due to report in the first half of this year, will “set out the path to spending 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence”.
Does the fact that we have seen the RFA, the Royal Navy, submarines, helicopters, P-8 aircraft and other assets involved in tracking Russian activity not show the full extent of the work needed to defend our island and deter our adversaries, and ultimately why we need to increase defence spending as soon as possible? The Secretary of State said in his statement, as he did at oral questions—I welcome that—that the SDR will report in the spring. I urge him to ensure that that is in March, at the very earliest opportunity, and that we will achieve at least 2.5% spending on defence this Parliament.
This is a perfectly reasonable point. As I have argued before, a spending commitment with not even a notional timeframe is effectively no commitment at all; the Ministry of Defence cannot spend non-existent money, and it cannot even make plans for spending money in the future if it does not know when the money will arrive. Moreover, the gaps in the MoD’s plans, and especially the Equipment Plan 2023-33, are so great that even this increase in spending would only make good existing deficits between commitments and resources rather than allow any kind of procurement bonanza.
We know the armed forces are desperately overstretched and unable to meet their public commitments. A report by the House of Commons Defence Committee published in February 2024, Ready for War?, set out as clearly as possible within the constraints of operational secrecy and national security the areas in which readiness was substantially below what was required. It made, and still makes, for grim reading.
Resources, however, fit into a wider issue which we have to confront. The Defence Secretary’s defiant warning to President Putin, “We see you”, has power only if we believe that the Russian leader wants to keep intelligence-gathering secret and fears public exposure, but there is no reason to think he cares that we know his assets have been monitoring vulnerable infrastructure. Indeed, from a psychological point of view, it is essential that we do know the extent of Russian surveillance, because it is only that knowledge which might affect our decision-making and potentially intimidate us.
Even if we can deploy sufficient assets adequately to monitor the intrusion of Russian vessels into UK waters, what are they going to do? Healey talked of strengthening the Royal Navy’s rules of engagement and promised “robust action to protect this country”. Under the current circumstances, however, it would be impossible to take direct physical action against Russian vessels or other assets without infringing international law. No matter how close aircraft, surface ships or submarines may get to these intruders, they can do nothing except watch and wait, prepared to take “robust action” after the fact of any sabotage or attempted interference.
This is not an easy problem to solve, I realise. Clearly the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force cannot simply conduct pre-emptive military strikes against Russian vessels which have broken no law or rule. It is hard to see how they could act ‘on the off-chance’ that sabotage was being carried out, and excessively forceful methods would be corrosive in terms of international opinion. Yet we remain hamstrung: using kinetic methods against a Russian ship, whether boarding or firing at it, would easily be portrayed as imperialist, colonialist arrogance and exceptionalism. If we are in a situation where the Royal Navy cannot act until after the fact, Putin might deem the risk of a vessel a price worth paying to cause substantial disruption and weakness.
We have to hope this issue is being considered in Whitehall and various options and scenarios assessed. I don’t expect the government to reveal its plans or intentions, but its current rhetoric, that it knows what Russia is doing and will take unspecified but “robust” measures in defence of our national interests, is inadequate. Putin is not disturbed by our knowing about his intelligence-gathering and provocation, and will have reached his own conclusions about what action we are willing to take under what circumstances. Clearly, given that the Yantar was in UK waters in November and again this month, we are having little or no deterrent effect.
Although historians now downplay its effectiveness, Richard Nixon believed in the potency of his so-called “Madman Theory”, the idea that if the United States’s opponents believed him to be highly volatile and unpredictable, they would act more cautiously with regard to American interests for fear of his making an irrational and aggressive decision. The West has to contend with an element of this theory with regard to Vladimir Putin. As we have seen with his repeated veiled threats about the possible use of nuclear weapons as part of the war in Ukraine, we can assess what would be in his interests and what would not, but we cannot be entirely sure that he will reach the same rational assessment that we have.
How far would he allow Russian forces to go in provoking or even taking action against us in our own territorial waters? This is our dilemma: we cannot rule out the possibility of a major act of sabotage against our undersea cable infrastructure, which could have devastating consequences; at the same time, it is hard to see how much more forceful and proactive we can be towards Russian intelligence-gathering around the coast of the UK. Undoubtedly we would benefit from more resources, with both the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force perilously overstretched, but that is a necessary rather than sufficient response. I don’t envy John Healey and his civilian and military advisers, but I hope against hope they are giving this matter a great deal of careful thought.