Defence Secretary John Healey announced new defence investment (Thomas Krych/PA) (PA)
They came quietly, lurking beneath the surface for weeks — but they did not go undetected. Britain’s Defence Minister John Healey revealed Thursday that Russian submarines spent more than a month operating in and around British waters earlier this year in what London has characterized as a covert operation targeting undersea cables and pipelines, prompting the deployment of British military vessels to shadow and deter them.
The disclosure was deliberately public. Standing at a press conference, Healey made clear that the decision to reveal the operation was itself a message aimed directly at the Kremlin. “To President Putin, I say ‘We see you. We see your activity over our cables and our pipelines, and you should know that any attempt to damage them will not be tolerated and will have serious consequences’,” he said.
According to Healey, the Russian operation involved an Akula-class attack submarine alongside two specialist vessels belonging to Moscow’s Main Directorate for Deep Sea Research, known by its Russian acronym, GUGI — units with a very specific and troubling purpose. “They are designed to survey underwater infrastructure during peacetime, and sabotage it in conflict,” he said. The submarines operated within Britain’s Exclusive Economic Zone and the waters of British allies, though Healey confirmed they did not enter British territorial waters.
London accused Moscow of timing the manoeuvre to exploit the world’s attention being fixed elsewhere, specifically using the distraction of events in the Middle East to attempt the operation in the High North maritime region — an area of strategic significance that serves as a corridor for key shipping routes and hosts critical undersea infrastructure connecting Europe and North America.
The response was multinational. After detecting Russian vessels entering international waters, Britain dispatched a frigate, a support tanker, and a maritime patrol aircraft. Norway, a key NATO ally in the region, also mobilised a P-8 maritime patrol aircraft and a frigate of its own. Healey confirmed that the combined allied effort successfully tracked and deterred the submarines, which have since left the area with no detectable damage to underwater infrastructure. “Our armed forces left them 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,” he said.
Russia’s embassy in London did not respond to requests for comment. Moscow has consistently denied responsibility for a string of incidents in which European undersea cables and pipelines have been damaged in recent years — incidents that have put NATO on heightened alert across the North Atlantic and Baltic Sea since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. While investigations into many of those incidents have pointed to civilian vessels dragging their anchors, the pattern has fuelled deep concern among Western governments about deliberate grey-zone sabotage operations.
Healey’s announcement also carried a subtext rooted in recent political friction. Britain’s naval capabilities have faced pointed criticism in recent weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump publicly mocked the British response to conflict in Iran, dismissing the country’s aircraft carriers as “toys.” Healey addressed that criticism head-on, arguing that strategic priorities — not capability — governed deployment decisions. “The greatest threats are often unseen and silent. And as demands on defence rise, we must deploy our resources to best effect,” he said, framing the submarine interception as precisely the kind of invisible but consequential operation that defines modern deterrence.
By: Andrews Kwesi Yeboah