A Russian spy ship has spent three months operating near Europe’s critical underwater cables to gather data and potentially prepare for sabotage, according to a Financial Times report.
The ship, Yantar, belongs to Russia’s Directorate of Deep-Sea Research (GUGI), a secretive unit overseeing about 50 vessels built for deep-water operations. Equipped with submersibles and robotic arms, Yantar is capable of tapping, cutting, or disrupting fiber-optic and energy lines.
According to the report, last year Yantar was observed passing Norway, the English Channel, the Irish Sea, the Mediterranean, and heading toward the Suez Canal. The vessel was also seen loitering over undersea cables near Svalbard and in the Irish Sea.
Capt. David Fields, the United Kingdom’s former naval attaché to Russia, told FT that Moscow has “invested a lot of time, money, and effort in mapping the critical national infrastructure of their enemies to attack covertly or overtly.”
He said Russia’s strategy emphasizes early strikes on infrastructure to weaken opponents before open war.
Last year, Finnish forces boarded the Russian oil tanker Eagle S, accusing it of severing undersea cables in the Baltic Sea, Finland’s first seizure of a foreign vessel since World War II. In January, Swedish authorities seized another vessel suspected of sabotage after an undersea fiber-optic cable connecting Latvia and Sweden was damaged in the Baltic.
The incidents prompted NATO to launch Operation Baltic Sentry to guard pipelines and cables.
The report of the spy ship’s presence in NATO waters comes amid increasing Russian airspace violations across Europe, including drones shot down over Poland on September 10 and fighter jets entering Estonian airspace on September 19.
