How serious is the Russian spy ship move?

According to Russia, Yantar is an ocean research ship; To others, including Britain, it is a spy ship and a source of concern for Britain’s defense chiefs.

The ship has long been suspected of secretly mapping Britain’s undersea cables, through which more than 90 percent of our data is transmitted, including billions of dollars’ worth of financial transactions.

But now, with Yantar’s sailors exposed, a new tension escalates. Royal Air Force targeted pilots with lasers on patrol planes.

Pointing a laser at a pilot’s eyes is provocative and, in the words of Defense Secretary John Healey, “extremely dangerous”. It is illegal in the UK and can lead to imprisonment.

Healey’s direct message to Russia and Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, was clear: “We see you. We know what you’re doing. And if Yantar goes south this week, we’re ready.”

By this he implies that there would be a military response if the Yantar crossed Britain’s 12-mile maritime border.

This isn’t the first time Yantar has appeared near the coast of England -at the beginning of the year, a Royal Navy submarine made the highly unusual move to surface right in front of the ship, as a sort of deterrent measure.

The concern is that this is part of the Kremlin’s ongoing operation to identify and map all the vital undersea cables and pipelines connecting the UK to the rest of the world.

It is also part of a broader pattern of Russia’s activity as it tests NATO’s responses, resolve and defence. We have seen similar movements in recent drone attacks on Europe and Russian warplanes flying into NATO airspace.

When three Russian warplanes intruded into Estonian skies in September, Italy, Finland and Sweden battled the jets as part of a mission to reinforce NATO’s eastern flank.

This is all interesting information for Russia.

As an island nation, Britain relies heavily on its network of undersea cables carrying data. There are also vital oil and gas pipelines connecting Britain to its North Sea neighbors such as Norway.

These cables and pipes are largely vulnerable and appear to be of great interest to Russia’s research vessels.

NATO has identified deep sea cables as part of the world’s critical infrastructure. However, these are also stated to be strategic pressure points; It warns that enemies can take advantage of them through sabotage or hybrid warfare and threaten both civilian and military communications.

Retired Royal Navy Commander Tom Sharpe made it clear what the spy ship could be doing: “The most obvious is that they are over our cables and critical undersea infrastructure and are penetrating the cables that transfer up to $7 trillion in financial transactions between us and America alone every day.”

Yantar may be described by Moscow as a research vessel, but it is part of Russia’s secretive Main Directorate for Deep Sea Research (GUGI), which reports directly to the defense ministry.

Even though the ship is packed with high-tech communications equipment, what we can’t see is what’s most concerning.

It can operate remote-controlled miniature submarines that can dive into seabeds thousands of meters below the surface. These are capable of mapping the locations of cables, cutting them, or placing sabotage devices that can potentially be activated in wartime.

The Royal Navy is trialling various tools to combat the threat, such as a new ship called Proteus, but critics fear much of the damage to Britain’s coastal security may have already been done.

All foreign ships operating in British waters must comply with UK national laws and international maritime conventions.

The cornerstone of this complex set of rules is the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). This allows foreign ships to navigate coastal waters provided their passage is “innocent”, meaning that they do not threaten the peace or security of a coastal nation such as the UK.

President Putin was at an artificial intelligence conference in Moscow on Wednesday and did not immediately react to the situation unfolding in the north of Scotland.

The Russian Embassy in London stated that this did not harm Britain’s security and condemned British Defense Minister Healey’s statement as provocative.

But all this is happening while war rages on in Ukraine, a conflict that Putin blames on the West and appears to have no intention of stopping any time soon.