UK says Russia ran submarine operation over cables and pipelines

 

File photo of frigate HMS St Albans deployed to track the Russian submarine (Image: Ministry of Defence)

Three Russian submarines conducted a "covert" operation over cables and pipelines in waters north of the UK, Defence Secretary John Healey said.

 A British warship and aircraft were deployed to deter the "malign" activity by Moscow and there was "no evidence" of any damage to UK infrastructure in the Atlantic, he added.

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 Healey said, "We see you," directly addressing Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia. We observe your activity over our pipelines and cables, and you ought to be aware that any attempt to harm them will not be tolerated and will result in severe consequences." The Russian embassy in London has denied Healey's claims, according to Moscow's state news agency Tass.

 For its energy and data, the UK relies on its undersea cables and pipelines. There are around 60 undersea cables which come ashore at several points along the UK coastline, particularly around East Anglia and South West England.

 These subsea cables carry more than 90% of the daily internet traffic in the UK. Healey stated at a press conference on Thursday at Downing Street that Russia had sent an Akula class submarine as a deterrent while two of its GUGI spy submarines were monitoring these cables.

Healey stated that the two GUGI vessels remained while the attack submarine quickly left UK waters and returned to Russia after being monitored. Tass reported that Russia was "not threatening underwater infrastructure, which is truly critical to the UK," according to the embassy. We are not using aggressive rhetoric in this regard."

 To track all three Russian submarines, the Royal Navy sent the frigate HMS St Albans, the fuel tanker RFA Tidespring, and anti-submarine Merlin helicopters. Even though Healey only mentioned Norway by name, other nations were involved in tracking the Russian activity. Healey stated, "Our armed forces left [Russia] 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." Healey was referring to the fact that Russia was being monitored. "We dropped sonar buoys to demonstrate to them that we were monitoring every hour of their operation," the statement reads. "We watched them, we were able to track them."

Russia's GUGI submarines

Although GUGI is not as well-known to the majority of people as, for example, the KGB or FSB, it poses a formidable and dangerous threat to Western nations. The acronym stands for the Russian words for Main Directorate for Deep Sea Research (Glavnoye upravlenie glubokovodnikh issledovanii).

 Although it is a part of the Russian navy it is so secretive that it reports directly to the defence minister and the president.

 It has its headquarters in St. Petersburg, which is on the Baltic Sea, but it also has a base in the Arctic, Olenya Bay, on the Kola Peninsula, where Russia's strategic nuclear submarine fleet is located. Underwater reconnaissance, sabotage, and surveillance are GUGI's specialties. Except for the United States, no other nation in the world has the same capability of operating military equipment at extremely low depths. This equipment includes the kind of miniature, uncrewed submarines that Russia is believed to have deployed over Britain's data cables in the North Atlantic.

 These "mini-subs" can be launched covertly at night from spy ships like the Yantar, which have been seen cruising the English Channel in the past. They have the ability to cut cables or in some cases, it's feared, interdict them to allow Russia to monitor the data passing through them.

 All this comes under the heading of hybrid warfare: hostile acts that stop short of an attributable, lethal attack.

Britain and NATO are concerned that Russia's covert surveillance of Western undersea cables and pipelines aims to give Moscow a head start in the event of conflict. If that were to occur, it is anticipated that Russia would attempt to disable or disrupt as much of Britain's data as it could by activating devices it may have strategically placed prior to the war.

Healey also claimed Putin had sought to capitalise on the world being "distracted" by war in the Middle East and that it was Russia that posed the "primary threat to UK security".

 He said Moscow still "poses a threat" but expressed confidence the UK could track and monitor future activity while continuing to expose "any covert operations that Putin wants to mount that may threaten our vital interests".

 Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he was "determined to protect the British people from paying the price for Putin's aggression in their household bills", adding this was why the UK would not "shy away from taking action and exposing Russia's destabilising activity that seeks to test our resolve".

 Kemi Badenoch, leader of the Conservative Party, made a post on X following Healey's press conference, requesting that Starmer "publish the Defence Investment Plan now." Badenoch said: "We stand shoulder to shoulder on Russian aggression.  To be strong abroad we need clarity on spending at home."  She went on to say that Starmer's strategy was "just words" without the investment plan.

Referring to reports this week that Russian oil tankers were escorted through the English channel by the Russian navy, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said: "If we have learnt one thing in the last month, it is that we do not have an operational Royal Navy at any level in this country and that for us needs to be a massive wake-up call."

 The BBC was informed by a former UK defense attaché in Moscow that "the rhetoric is a bit worn out by now." John Foreman, a retired Royal Navy officer, said: "We're well aware of the Russian threat.  The question is whether we are taking any action. He went on to mention the decommissioned RFA Wave Knight and RFA Wave Ruler tankers, stating that the UK is "hard-pressed" to maintain its security. According to Foreman, "I don't know how we are going to dig ourselves out of this nadir of maritime security that we have found ourselves in." One of the most important pieces of critical infrastructure in the world is underwater cables and pipelines. More than 600 undersea cables connect the world by 870,000 miles (1.4m km) carrying electricity and information across oceans and seas, coming ashore often at discreet locations.

According to BBC Verify, Dr. Sidharth Kaushal, a sea power researcher at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), the GUGI unit of the Russian military employs deep-diving mini-submarines that are aided by a larger "mothership." These vessels are "complex targets", Kaushal said, because they are designed to avoid detection by reducing the amount of noise they emit, how much water they displace and how detectable they are to magnetic sensors.

 Kaushal said that even though the Royal Navy was watching them, it's likely that the submarines were still able to get information about the UK's undersea cable network. He said the UK's ability to constrain their operations during peacetime is "limited" and notes that militaries and private organisations can legally carry out such monitoring "as long as they are in international waters".

 However, Kaushal stated that the Royal Navy may have gathered vital intelligence by monitoring the operation in order to "potentially recover any surveillance assets left behind" and learn more about what is being mapped. The UK also relies on a network of underwater gas pipelines, primarily in the North Sea, which provide essential energy from the UK and Norwegian Continental Shelves.

 These include the 724 mile-long (1,166km) Langeled pipeline between Norway and the UK.

 About 77% of the UK's gas imports come from Norway through pipelines lying under the North Sea.

BBC InDepth revealed in 2025 that Russia was waging "hybrid warfare" against the UK and western Europe, with the aim of punishing or deterring Western nations from continuing their military support of Ukraine.

 When a hostile state carries out an anonymous, deniable attack, typically in highly suspicious circumstances, that does not qualify as an attributable act of war, this is referred to as "hybrid warfare." The Russian embassy has previously said it was "not interested in British underwater communications".

Source: BBC