Rivelato: la guerra segreta di Putin nelle acque del Regno Unito

Paywall!

Revealed: Putin’s secret war in UK waters

Russian sensors trying to track nuclear submarines have been found in a campaign of ‘greyzone’ warfare that also targets our energy and internet. Even oligarchs’ superyachts are in on it

Russian sensors suspected of attempting to spy on the UK’s nuclear submarines have been found hidden in the seas around Britain.

The discovery by the British military was deemed a potential threat to national security and has never been made public. Several were found after they washed ashore, while others are understood to have been located by the Royal Navy.

The devices are believed to have been planted by Moscow to try and gather intelligence on Britain’s four Vanguard submarines, which carry nuclear missiles.

One of these submarines is always at sea under what is known as the UK’s continuous at-sea deterrent. The Sunday Times has chosen to withhold certain details, including the locations of the sensors.

During a three-month investigation we spoke to more than a dozen former defence ministers, senior armed forces personnel and military experts to expose how Russia is using its unrivalled underwater warfare capabilities to map, hack and potentially sabotage critical British infrastructure.
We were allowed unprecedented access to the RFA Proteus, the Royal Navy’s deep-sea surveillance vessel, to witness how it is leading efforts to counter threats in domestic waters.

The investigation also found:
* Unmanned Russian vehicles have been discovered lurking next to deep-sea communications cables.
* The Ministry of Defence had credible intelligence that superyachts owned by Russian oligarchs may have been used to conduct underwater reconnaissance.
* The navy has discovered other sensors planted on the sea bed.
* The government is looking at requiring technology and energy companies to work more closely with the military and fund the protection of underwater infrastructure.

It’s not all that secret. They’ve been flying in to our airspace and our waters for decades (and to many other European countries), testing response times and seeing what they can get away with. Plenty of news articles more recently detailing Russian-affiliated ships hovering over undersea cables and other infrastructure. The frequency seems to be going up.

Listening devices is an interesting one, goes to show that our 30 year old Vanguard subs are still elusive and a real concern for Russia.

I can’t help but feel that European governments are downplaying the threat of Russia to their populations, at least for the moment.

Edit: I may have commented too early, I’ve just realised OP wasn’t even close to fully copy and pasting the article in the comments.

This is why one should have a full triad. The sea leg is the most resilient, but it’s not invulnerable. If Israel can have a triad, then so can the UK and France. Deterrence shouldn’t be minimal.

It’s not really a secret. Britain just prefers to bury its head in the sand and it’s population is just too overwhelmed with social media to understand or give a fuck.

Need to be taking out these unmanned subs for a start.

Thanks for this post.

I’m just a random Norwegian following the war in Ukraine, seeing one after the other subsea fiber cable being destroyed, and to make it short (will probably regret that), just putting two and two together. Who has the motive, who needs a distraction from a failing war, who are allied with Iran who has been supporting Hamas for decades.

Who has a habit of stirring up shit everywhere?

I’ve said for 3 years while seeing russian trawlers sail up and down our coast in non-traditional fishing zones, but instead outside wind farms and where electricity, gas and oil comes to land…

We’re so naive.We should expect the explosives to already be in place. We should be scanning the underside of every single russian ship entering our waters with our own submersible robots. Last year alone, our banking system was down several times, found to be russia-caused. Emergency telephone numbers were down, and our railroad signal system suffered errors several times a week.

I’m no diplomat and normally a skeptic, but how much evidence do we need before we know russia is not wanting to be friends?