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The submarines are thought to be mapping the UK’s undersea communications networks.
The UK’s defence secretary John Healey has today revealed to reporters that a trio of Russian submarines have been monitored in UK waters, likely monitoring the country’s subsea cables and pipelines.
British armed forces, including a naval ship and a Royal Air Force plane, were quickly deployed to track and deter the submarines, which subsequently left the area.
There are no reports of submarine infrastructure having been damaged.
“To Putin, I say this: we see you, we see your activity over our underwater infrastructure. You should know that any attempt to damage it will not be tolerated and would have serious consequences,” said Healy.
The incident involved three submarines, a Russian Akula-class attack submarine and two spy submarines belonging to Russia’s Main Directorate for Deep-Sea Research (GUGI). These GUGI submarines are designed to monitor and map submarine cable infrastructure and could be used to sabotage these underwater systems.
“These aren’t standard submarines, they’re specialist vessels designed for deep sea operations,” Charlotte Wilson, Head of Enterprise at Check Point Cybersecurity, told the BBC. “So, this isn’t random movement, it suggests a deliberate effort to understand where critical infrastructure sits and how it behaves. Not only mapping locations but also assessing how resilient those systems are.”
GUGI has often been linked to covert submarine cable surveillance in UK waters, most recently in 2025 when its ‘spy ship’, Yantar, was accused of entering British waters to map subsea infrastructure.
A notable incident occurred in January 2025, when a UK submarine surfaced beside the Yantar in a show of strength, with Healy subsequently saying, “we know what you’re doing and we will not shy away from robust action to protect this country”.
Over a year later, however, and Russia is seemingly undeterred. Healy notes “increased Russian activity” in the Atlantic north of the UK, with a 30% increase in Russian vessels threatening UK waters.
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