The UK is vulnerable to Russian attacks on its undersea power cables, a military intelligence expert has warned. Philip Ingram MBE said undersea power cables could “quite easily” be sabotaged by Russia, plunging the UK into darkness.
The leading military expert told GB News: “The Russians have had spy trawlers ever since the year dot and they’ve been going round coastlines sucking up all the communications and bringing that into their intelligence game and surveying the sea floors and, of course, critical national infrastructure is one of their potential targets.
“So, they are keeping their planning options open by sending these spy ships around to look at different countries’ critical national infrastructure.”
Asked by Tom Harwood if the Russians could cut off the UK, he replied: “Oh, they could quite easily, yeah…
“The Russians will be keeping on top of anything and everything that they can so that if they need to try and influence things in the future it causes real difficulties and energy is something that they have weaponised in the war with Ukraine. It’s something that they will be planning to do.
“The Secretary of Defence has announced the purchase of two new ships to go round and re-survey everything and just keep it checked.
“And of course, that is a task that the Royal Navy will be doing today. They’re just getting additional assets to do it.”
Mr Ingram added: “We’ve got a big coastline and it’s not just us that they’re looking at. This spy ship has come out of the Baltic sea, it’s been looking at all of the different Baltic countries, so it’s looking NATO-wide rather than just UK-specific.”
He continued: “We are one of the strongest supporters of Ukraine and from an anti-Russian perspective, they don’t like that at all.
“But there’s another piece to this. They want to keep threatening London because they want to try and continue what they believe is a split between the United Kingdom and the EU caused through Brexit and they feel that by continuously attacking London, in the words that they’re putting out and suggesting they’re going to do nasty things to London, it will make the rest of the EU distance themselves even more.
“They’re very subtle in what they’re trying to do.”
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The warning comes after a senior Tory MP, Bob Seely, told The Telegraph Putin is “preparing for war” by sending his spy ships to map wind farms and cables off the British coast.
He warned while Russia and China are gearing up for a wider conflict, “Britain is not ready.”
He added that Britain’s largest vulnerability, as Putin will have learned, is in being a coastal nation surrounded by sea. He said Poland in the East would be ready to “defend European soil” in the event of a war with NATO, but the alliance is exposed at sea because Putin could easily cut out the bloc’s energy and communications supply.
Britain has just three pipelines that provide 43 percent of our baseline gas supply. Seely noted there are about 70 communication cables but these could be easily wiped out in a “deep-sea sabotage operation”.
He said there is a “need” for Britain to bolster its maritime defense, working with Scandinavian, North Sea, and Baltic Allies.
He added: “All these sea-faring countries have a vested interest in preventing Russian ocean sabotage. But Britain’s history is unique and our naval experience unrivaled, especially among our northern European allies.”
“The need is critical,” he added. “This century will witness a struggle between two versions of humanity: open societies like our own versus closed, authoritarian societies using all forms of state power to oppress their own people and threaten others. It is a struggle that we have not wanted, but one that we cannot, and must not, lose.”
A joint report by broadcasters in Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway claims the Russian ship Admiral Vladimirsky was part of an operation to map undersea infrastructure.
While officially classified as an ocean research vessel, the report says it is part of a fleet which is examining key energy sites for possible sabotage.
Danish broadcaster DR has published video of an encounter at sea between a small boat carrying their team and the Russian ship, filmed off the Danish coast in November.
It shows a man, wearing a balaclava and military gear, and carrying an assault rifle, appearing on the deck of the Admiral Vladimirsky.
The ship is thought to have entered the Moray Firth on November 10 last year.
Niels Fastrup from Danish broadcaster DR spoke to STV about the investigation.
He said: “It seems to have been loitering for a few days in the Moray Firth area.
“According to the source we’ve been talking to, and we gave them a look into our data, what they believe is, it is investigating some of the offshore wind farms in Scottish waters.
“The next time it stopped was at the Seagreen wind farm outside of Aberdeen.
“According to our experts and intelligence sources we’ve been talking to, the purpose of that stop was also to investigate the Seagreen wind farm in order to look for possible vulnerabilities to exploit in the event of an escalation in the current conflict situation between Russia and the Western world.”
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