Russia deployed three submarines to spy on the UK’s critical undersea pipelines in the northern Atlantic, British officials revealed on Thursday.
UK Defense Secretary John Healey called out Russian President Vladimir Putin as he accused the Kremlin of using three underwater vessels to gather information on Britain following previous sabotage attempts in Europe.
“I’m making the statement to call out this Russian activity. And to President Putin, I say, ‘We see you. We see your activity over our cables and our pipelines,’” Healey said.
The British military had spent more than a month tracking the Russian submarines, two of which were part of Russia’s Main Directorate of Deep Sea Research, the defense secretary said.
The third submarine was a Kremlin attack vessel that was allegedly deployed to draw Britain’s attention and distract from the allegedly espionage operations being carried out by the other two subs.
Healey did not say where exactly the submarines were detected or what cables or pipelines they were spying on.
The British military, however, sent a direct warning to Russia that “any attempt to damage them will not be tolerated and will have serious consequences,” he added.
After the submarines were caught monitoring the UK’s undersea cables, the submarines were tracked heading back home towards Russia, Healey said.
Russia has been repeatedly accused of sabotaging underwater fiber-optic cables in the Baltic Sea, with one operation in 2024 allegedly cutting off lines connecting Sweden to Lithuania and Finland to Germany.
Moscow has repeatedly denied allegations that it orchestrated the cuts of the underwater lines in the Baltic Sea.
The Kremlin did not immediately issue a statement about Healy’s allegations.
Along with trying to use an attack submarine to distract the UK, Healy claimed that the Kremlin issued the alleged espionage action to occur while Britain and NATO were distracted with the war in Iran.
“Putin would want us to be distracted by the Middle East,” Healey said. “We are not just exposing his covert operation, but we are saying to him that we recognize Russia as the primary threat to the UK and to NATO, and that we will not take our eyes off Putin.”
