Russian Trawlers Mapping Critical UK Infrastructure in North Sea: The Telegraph
The Telegraph found 17 ships lingering over cable routes, while ministers plan penalties of up to 14 years for intentional damage.
- On Thursday, a new analysis revealed that Russian state actors have used commercial fishing trawlers to track critical UK undersea communications cables, with over 500 incidents recorded across four-and-a-half years.
- Ministers stated that President Vladimir Putin is using these vessels as "commercial proxies" to map precise cable locations in case of conflict, as the Royal Navy warned Russia could attack from "day one."
- Data from Global Fishing Watch identified 17 ships that spent prolonged periods at low speed near charted cable routes, with one vessel loitering over the Atlantic Crossing 1 cable for 337 hours.
- The Ministry of Defence is investing £330m to strengthen infrastructure protection, while a white paper released today proposes increasing penalties for cable interference from £1,000 fines to up to 14 years' imprisonment.
- Earlier joint operations by Britain, Norway, and the United States intercepted Russian submersibles training to disable cables in Arctic waters, prompting legislative updates to deter future sabotage.
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35 Articles
Ships have been able to travel over submarine cables for kilometers.
Russian fishing vessels have travelled more than 500 times in the vicinity of submarine cables linking Britain to Europe and the United States, and journalists assume that they were able to gather intelligence.
Russian fishing boats spy on undersea cables off the British coast. Over the past four and a half years, Russian civilian ships have stopped over or sailed along critical undersea cables more than 500 times. These cables connect the United Kingdom with Europe and the United States, writes thetelegraph. Russia is using these activities to survey the seabed and determine the exact location of the cables, so that they can be damaged in the event of…
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