The U.K. said it tracked three Russian submarines during a covert, month-long military operation aimed at monitoring potential threats to undersea infrastructure.
Defense Minister John Healey said the vessels were detected in the North Sea, near key shipping routes and undersea cables. One of the submarines was a nuclear-powered Akula-class vessel, while the other two were intelligence-gathering submarines from Russia’s Main Directorate of Deep Sea Research, known as GUGI.
I’m proud of our UK Armed Forces, who left these Russian vessels with no doubt.
Their movements were not covert as Putin planned.
Their attempted secret operations were exposed.
And they have now retreated. https://t.co/8L3XkjbM0O
— John Healey (@JohnHealey_MP) April 9, 2026
According to Healey, the attack submarine was a “likely decoy to distract” from the two specialist vessels, which are “designed to survey underwater infrastructure during peacetime and sabotage it in conflict.”
Healey said Britain deployed a Royal Navy frigate, a Royal Air Force patrol aircraft and hundreds of personnel to deter the Russian activity. Norway also participated in the operation.
He said the submarines left U.K. waters soon after British and Norwegian forces were deployed, with no evidence of damage to underwater infrastructure.
“Our armed forces left [Russia] in no doubt that they were being monitored, that their movements were not covert, as President [Vladimir] Putin planned, and that their attempted secret operation had been exposed,” Healey said. “We watched them, we were able to track them, we dropped sonar buoys to demonstrate to them that we were monitoring every hour of their operation.”
He said the decision to disclose the operation was intended to send a warning to Moscow.
“I am making this statement to call out this Russian activity. And to President Putin, I say this: we see you, we see your activity over our cables and pipelines. And you should know that any attempt to damage them will not be tolerated, and will have serious consequences,” he said.
The Russian embassy in London dismissed the British government’s allegations that its submarines threatened undersea cables, state news agency TASS reported.
Alleged Russian undersea cable operations have increased since Moscow’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The cables carry about 99% of global internet traffic, and the U.K. has roughly 60 that land near its shores.
Russia has repeatedly denied targeting undersea cables.
