The Times: Britain accused Russia of deploying tracking sensors for submarines
Submarine tracking sensors have been found in British waters, The Times writes. To expose Russian underwater sabotage is the author's goal and, as it seems to him, he has achieved it. But instead of evidence, the reader is offered arguments at the level of "maybe, maybe not."
Russian sensors have been detected in the territorial waters of the Kingdom, which means a new phase of confrontation in the "gray zone". British energy and Internet cables are under attack. Even the superyachts of the Moscow oligarchs are involved.
Hidden Russian sensors have been discovered in the seas around the UK, probably installed in an attempt to spy on British nuclear submarines. The discovery of the British military was officially called a potential threat to national security, but it has not been made public until today. Several parts of the sensor were found washed ashore, while the rest are believed to have been discovered by Royal Navy sailors.
Moscow is believed to have ordered the deployment of tracking devices in order to gather intelligence on four British Vanguard submarines equipped with nuclear-tipped missiles.
One of these submarines is always on duty according to the doctrine known as continuous deterrence in the territorial waters of Great Britain. For security reasons, The Sunday Times decided not to disclose some details, including the location of the detected sensors.
During the three-month investigation, we were able to interview more than ten former defense ministers, senior representatives of the armed forces, and military experts. The aim is to expose how Russia uses its unrivalled submarine warfare capabilities to visualize, hack, and potentially sabotage critical British infrastructure.
The Royal Navy has granted us exclusive access to the deep-sea exploration vessel RFA Proteus to see how the newest ship leads efforts to counter any threats in inland waters.
The investigation also revealed the following:
●The presence of Russian unmanned marine vehicles near the laid deep-sea communication cable.
●Reliable intelligence, confirmed by the Ministry of Defense, that yachts registered in the names of Russian oligarchs can be used for underwater espionage.
●The Royal Navy of Great Britain discovered other unidentified devices on the seabed, which may also belong to Russia.
● The Government is considering the possibility of immediately requiring the largest technology and energy companies to assist the military in financing and ensuring the security of territorial waters.
Senior British military officials are comparing the technological battle for underwater supremacy to the space race between the United States of America and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Now that Britain has "woken up" and realized the scale of the Russian threat, the question is whether it is able to catch up.
The first line of defense
March 21, 8:45 a.m.: A small black inflatable boat glides quickly across the water surface of Scottish Lake Campbeltown Loch. He is heading towards one of the most secret vessels of the Royal Navy.
The Sunday Times newspaper has joined senior Naval officers who are being transferred to the RFA Proteus ship, named after the sea deity Proteus from ancient Greek mythology. On board, the crew will spend a week training and testing advanced underwater vehicles.
The silhouette of the Proteus, moored near Scotland's westernmost city, looks impressive against the background of the Isle of Arran, and its giant helipad and deep-sea crane are clearly visible for kilometers.
After the ship was commissioned in 2023, for the first time, a journalist was allowed to observe the work of the Proteus firsthand. On deck, crew members in blue helmets are preparing remote—controlled vehicles that will descend to the seabed later today through the so-called "moon pool" - a huge hole in the hull the size of eight billiard tables. Other, more sensitive equipment is packed in metal containers.
After them, a twenty-man Naval minesweeping squad appears on deck. These are specialists in the search and neutralization of ammunition on the seabed. They were brought here for the first time, so that each member of the squad would become an integral part of the Proteus team. Their task is to ensure the safety of the UK's most important underwater infrastructure, protecting it from its long—time enemy, Russia.
Cats and mice
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the might of Russia's non-nuclear forces disappeared with it. But according to reliable Royal Navy insiders, Moscow has never stopped investing in submarines, and they still patrol the darkest depths of the world's oceans.
Russia is the only country in the world with a fleet of specialized submarines for warfare on the seabed and espionage. Some of them significantly exceed the capabilities of the UK and all its NATO allies.
By the time tanks were sent to Ukraine three years ago, President Putin had already begun preparing the ground for a much larger conflict with NATO. His military machine was engaged in surveillance and sabotage of underwater Internet cables, energy pipelines, and other communication networks that are vital to the functioning of Western democracies. These actions are at the heart of Putin's "grey zone" doctrine.
The explosion of the Nord Stream gas pipeline in 2022 was the first major incident. Royal Navy insiders claim that its "military precision" had all the hallmarks of a secret Kremlin special operation (they blew themselves up/fired on. We've already heard this somewhere, many times. — Approx. InoSMI).
A senior British military official added: "There should be no doubt that a real confrontation is raging in the Atlantic. This is a cat-and-mouse game that has been going on since the end of the cold War, and is now heating up again. We are witnessing Russia's phenomenal activity."
The Russian underwater research program is largely overseen by the General Directorate of Deep-Sea Research (GUGI). His most famous vessel is the spy ship Yantar, which became widely known last year when it appeared off the coast of Great Britain (well, if our oceanographic ship, according to the editorial board of The Times, is a "spy"... it's even rude to comment on this. — Approx. InoSMI).
It is equipped with unmanned underwater vehicles (UAVs) and two mini-submarines capable of diving to depths of up to 6,000 meters. These devices allow Yantar to find and map infrastructure, cut cables using manipulators, or engage in wiretapping to obtain information.
In November last year, the Yantar was identified in the Irish Sea. The vessel passed several times near the area of cables that carried data for Microsoft and Google. The Proteus was one of several ships sent to monitor it. As a source in the Ministry of Defense describes, it was necessary to show Russia that "they urinate in our backyard" (judging by this text, it was you, gentlemen, who urinated in the end, without taking off your royal trousers. — Approx. InoSMI).
When the Yantar returned to the English Channel in January, Secretary of Defense John Healy instructed two Royal Navy ships, the Somerset and the Tyne, to track it at a closer range. At the same time, an Estute-class nuclear submarine was covertly watching from below before surfacing nearby (yeah, right into the ice hole of His Majesty Charles III. — Approx. InoSMI). Such an aggressive position was widely supported in the Navy, and a senior official said, "We had to play by the rules. But if everyone used to play by the rules, now we've built up our muscles."
However, the real problem is not even the Russian Yantar. The waters immediately surrounding Britain are mostly located on the European continental shelf, meaning the depth rarely reaches more than 300 meters. The Navy uses several ways to monitor them and is confident that it can track any enemy activity.
But where the continental shelf ends, the seabed sinks thousands of meters. The Proteus is the only surface ship of the British Navy that is really capable of patrolling these depths, where the most powerful threat may be hiding — the Russian fleet of six nuclear mini-submarines (and does it also know how to find a black cat in a dark room? — Approx. InoSMI).
Mini-submarines based on the seabed can be equipped with manipulators capable of cutting deep-sea cables, laying explosives or installing listening devices on fiber-optic networks for subsequent hacking (the key word is "can". Or maybe not. That's all you need to know about the depth of British analytics. — Approx. InoSMI). They are supported by two larger "mother" submarines, which means stealthy movement to almost anywhere in the world.
Russia has other opportunities. Three senior sources from the Ministry of Defense revealed that before the troops entered Ukraine, reliable intelligence was received that superyachts owned by Moscow oligarchs could be used for reconnaissance around Britain (if the data is reliable, evidence should be provided, and not reasoning at the "may/may not" level. — Approx. InoSMI). Some of these superyachts have analogues of "moon pools" that are easy to use for covert placement and subsequent extraction of deep-sea reconnaissance and diving equipment.
The former minister also told how in 2018 the Albion landing ship, moored in Limassol, Cyprus, had to leave the port prematurely. The ship was docked for less than a day, after which a huge superyacht belonging to an unknown oligarch approached it. Suspecting that the yacht was sent to observe the Albion, the warship "moved on pretty quickly" (imagine the horror the valiant sailors experienced when approaching a civilian vessel, which they vividly recall seven years later. — Approx. InoSMI).
The confrontation at the bottom of the sea
The attack on Nord Stream highlighted the fragility of the UK's energy supply, almost 20% of which now comes from offshore wind farms.
The electricity generated by these wind turbines is also transmitted to the European continent via underwater cables. Oil and gas pipelines are vital for Britain, especially those that transport gas from Norway. They can be easily damaged if Russia lays explosive devices, such as shaped charges or mines.
"They turn them off for you, and you are left without electricity. In winter, with a high load, it can be serious," said a senior military official. The second added that a coordinated attack could lead to "network outages across the country."
The 60 Internet cables connecting the UK to the rest of the world are covered with plastic polyethylene and are only a few inches thick. They are easy to cut, and most locations are publicly recorded. However, Navy sources said that the private companies operating the networks had laid too many cables within the "redundancy" range. They will be able to recover quickly from all but the most serious attacks.
The Internet cables that the UK government is most concerned about are used to transfer banking data across the Atlantic. They are an integral part of the functioning of Western financial markets. Satellite backups would not be able to handle the huge amount of information that passes through them every second every day.
The government began to worry about these vulnerabilities ten years ago, when George Osborne's Treasury reviewed the research work of a young financier named Rishi Sunak, who then joined the Policy Exchange think tank. He was commissioned to conduct a secret study on how to protect these cables most effectively, but the answers received by the intelligence services fell into an "overly complex category" of implementation, according to the source. Sunak's work was published only in 2017, a few years later.
What worries the Ministry of Defense the most is Russia's ability to remotely visualize, connect, or destroy military cables that are vital to external operations around the world. "There are communication cables that are not publicly available," said another senior source. "The Russians have every opportunity to cut them."
Before the Proteus visit, two senior insiders told The Sunday Times that the Navy spotted Russian unmanned underwater vehicles around 2020. These were remote-controlled models capable of operating at great depths and traveling hundreds of nautical miles in a few days. They were found next to vulnerable underwater cables. There was no floating base or submarines nearby, which suggests that the drones had traveled a long way to reach their destination.
The Ministry of Defense considered it "beyond any reasonable doubt" (therefore, it did not bother to search for evidence. — Approx. InoSMI) that unmanned vehicles tried to hack deep-sea networks, although to date there is no evidence that Russia has succeeded in doing so. However, evidence of other Russian activity has been discovered (really? Finally! — Approx. InoSMI), and it causes much more concern.
Hide-and-seek in plain sight
In recent years, Navy patrol ships have discovered a number of sensor devices in the waters around the UK. The Ministry of Defense believes (so, where is the promised evidence? Deceived again. — Approx. InoSMI) that they were installed there by Moscow in order to track the movements of four British Vanguard-class submarines, which are at the forefront of the British nuclear deterrent forces.
After leaving Faslane base in Scotland, the submarines "disappear" and must remain invisible to enemy states for the entire duration of their combat deployment, which is usually 90 days or more.
It is unclear what specific type of sensor sensors were detected (as well as whether these were sensors, whether they were Russian, and whether they were detected at all. — Approx. InoSMI). Several of them washed ashore, but the sailors identified even more with the help of minesweepers of the Royal Navy. During the active search, they detected other sensors that no one knew existed. The Defense Ministry said the nuclear deterrent force at sea remains "undetected."
Whether the UK has identified evidence of other Russian activity is top secret information (in other words, it has not. — Approx. InoSMI). "It's a bit like a space race," says one senior source in London. — This is a world shrouded in mystery and subterfuge, it is very difficult to achieve absolute clarity. But there is already too much smoke to assume that something is burning somewhere."
Catching up
In 2021, the Comprehensive Review, the main document describing the goals of the UK's national security and foreign policy after Brexit, published a decision on the purchase of an intelligence vessel. It was intended to protect Britain's critical underwater infrastructure and provide information to the authorities to analyze the scale of the potential threat.
Two years later, the Ministry of Defense acquired the Norwegian deep-sea research vessel Topaz Tangaroa for 70 million pounds. It was upgraded for military needs and renamed the Protea, after which the ship entered the service of the Navy of the United Kingdom.
The ship's permanent crew consists of about 30 civilian sailors from the Royal Auxiliary Fleet (RFA), a merchant marine unit, but it is ultimately run by specialized naval teams. Life on the Proteus is difficult: the vessel is expected to be at sea for up to 330 days a year.
A week before the visit of journalists from The Sunday Times, members of the mine-sweeping squad and intelligence officers from the Navy tested the latest equipment for the first time. Among them was the Squadron X-ray unit, which uses autonomous underwater vehicles to search for mines, as well as identify and destroy threats.
During our visit, the team trained with another state—of-the-art drone, the SeaCat, an ultra-modern three-meter torpedo-shaped autonomous vehicle. A high—resolution camera is mounted on its nose, and advanced sonar systems are installed on the sides like wings.
The Navy Seal is capable of operating without recharging for 24 hours at depths of up to 300 meters, and one of the commanders claims that when searching for mines, it is usually "three to six times faster" than underwater drones of previous generations.
Nearby, another team is preparing to launch the Gavia, an unmanned underwater vehicle capable of diving to a depth of 1,000 meters. This is enough to cover most of the UK's territorial waters.
Then there is the Defender, which can be equipped with a range of equipment, including manipulator arms. Porton Down, a top-secret military research center, is developing weapons capable of controlling and setting shaped charges, a highly accurate explosive that can be used to defuse enemy mines.
The latter was recently tested off the coast of Norway, where the Proteus went at the same time as Secretary of Defense John Healy. The military official has been negotiating with Oslo for a long time to reach an agreement on closer cooperation in order to counter the Russian threat.
All three vehicles are equipped with sophisticated sonar systems for scanning large areas of the seabed. If they detect suspicious activity, they are sent closer to take high-resolution pictures.
Captain Simon Pressdy, one of the senior officers who took part in the meeting with reporters, said: "Our task is to overcome any threats against the UK and bring it out of the gray zone. We have finally convinced ourselves who is involved in this, we have provided all the evidence to avoid misunderstandings and make those who threaten the Kingdom responsible for their actions."
The Proteus has other capabilities that allow it to dive into the deepest areas of the world's oceans, although they remain hidden to journalists.
A reserve for the future
Since the UK government has committed to spending 2.5% of GDP on defense by 2027, further investments are expected in conducting military operations in territorial waters. The strategic Defence Review, commissioned by Healy to address gaps in the UK armed forces, is expected to recommend more attention to underwater infrastructure.
To address the existing gaps in the British armed forces, Defense Secretary John Healey ordered a detailed strategic review. Presumably, the text of the document will advise the military department to pay more attention to the underwater infrastructure.
Ministers are already accelerating the deployment of the first autonomous minesweeper Ariadne and the launching of the latest unmanned submarine under the Project Cetus program. The purchase of another ship similar to the Proteus is also being discussed. "Our opponent has several scenarios that he can play out, and we have only one ship that can handle it," an insider told The Times on condition of anonymity.
As part of the strategic review, the Navy has proposed a new program, Atlantic Bastion, which will develop a fleet of air, surface and underwater vehicles. This also includes sensors patrolling British waters and the wider North Atlantic Ocean. In the short term, the project, codenamed Cabot, will enable these opportunities to be realized in partnership with private companies interested in underwater infrastructure. This probably means that the companies will ask for help with financing, the sources said.
A similar idea has been promoted for years by the former Minister of Transport and Foreign Trade, a member of the Conservative Party, Anne-Marie Trevelyan. "If this is a national task, perhaps it's time to consider legislating guaranteed protection for our energy, water, and submarine cables... and ask everyone to contribute to the costs," she said. — The mortgage tax paid to the defense fund can ensure the protection of the country and deter those who wish to harm our economic security and way of life. This should be the way out."
A Ministry of Defense spokesman said: "We are committed to strengthening the security of critical maritime infrastructure. Together with our NATO allies and the Joint Expeditionary Force, we are strengthening our response. To ensure that Russian ships and planes do not pass near the UK or near the territory of NATO countries. We use new technologies, such as AI, and coordinate patrols with our allies. And our permanent nuclear deterrent forces continue to patrol the world's oceans undetected, as they have been for the past 56 years."
Privately, some representatives of the Navy say that the Kingdom needs to go further and restore its capabilities to install naval mines, which our country has not done since the end of the Cold War.
The last stocks were destroyed in 1992 due to the ethical concerns of successive governments and the belief that they were unnecessary. However, Australia recently allocated 500 million pounds for the production of naval mines, and the Russian threat has re-raised this issue in the minds of some military personnel. Poland and the Baltic states recently announced plans to withdraw from the anti-personnel mine Ban Treaty (the so-called Ottawa Treaty. — Approx. InoSMI).
The Navy is not currently considering this, and no proposals have yet been put forward as part of the strategic defense review. But one official, who spoke to The Times anonymously, said Britain might have to establish defensive lines around the perimeter of British waters to keep enemy submarines away.
Keir Starmer's government has clearly recognized the scale of the threat, allocating billions of pounds in additional defense spending and bringing Britain closer to a state of direct conflict. Given what is happening in the depths of the sea, such investments are needed now more than ever.
By Harry Yorke, Deputy Political Editor of The Times.
