UK considers ‘navy choices’ towards Putin spy ship firing lasers at RAF pilots: Warships and planes will monitor vessel’s each transfer if it heads into British waters

The UK is considering ‘military options’ if a Russian spy ship sails any closer to British shores after its crew used a laser to target RAF pilots.

Britain’s Defence Secretary said the UK was ready to respond if the ship moves any further south from its current position in ‘wider UK waters’ north of Scotland.

John Healey lambasted the Kremlin last night, warning the Russian leader that they were watching the vessel’s movements closely.

Warships and RAF planes have been keeping watch on the Yantar, which is designed for gathering intelligence and mapping crucial undersea cables, after it entered wider UK waters this month.

Mr Healey said the frigate HMS Somerset and RAF P-8 Poseidon aircraft had been deployed to ‘track this vessel’s every move, during which the Yantar directed lasers at our pilots’.

He also confirmed he has provided British pilots with more robust guidance to counter such threats following a dramatic showdown in the North Sea.

He fired a verbal warning shot across Vladimir Putin‘s bow as fears were raised that the Yantar ship – part of a so-called Russian ‘ghost’ fleet – has been targeting cables and pipelines. 

The ghost fleet consists of ordinary looking ships that Russia claims are research vessels, but are in fact bristling with surveillance equipment and carry manned and unmanned submarines.

The devices can cause permanent damage to pilots’ eyesight, while experts suggest Russian industrial-strength lasers could burn holes in aircraft. 

Mr Healey said yesterday: ‘As I speak, a Russian spy ship, the Yantar, is on the edge of UK waters north of Scotland having entered the UK’s wider waters over the last few weeks.

‘My message to Russia and to Putin is this – we see you. We know what you’re doing. And if the Yantar travels south this week, we are ready. We have military options ready.

‘We deployed a Royal Navy frigate and a RAF P-8 plane to track the vessel’s every move, during which the Yantar directed lasers at our pilots. Anything that impedes, disrupts or puts at risk pilots in charge of British military planes is deeply dangerous.’

This incident is understood to be the first time a Russian spy ship has used lasers against the Royal Navy or Royal Air Force.

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, in Berlin for a meeting with her German counterpart, said the UK would be ‘vigilant and determined’ in its response to Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Russia denied that it was ‘interested in British underwater communications’ and accused the UK of being ‘Russophobic’ and ‘whipping up militaristic hysteria’.

The UK and Nato allies are increasingly concerned about the risk Moscow poses to offshore cables, pipelines and other infrastructure critical to internet connectivity.

Attacks on undersea cables could cause ‘catastrophic disruption’ to the financial and communications systems Britons rely on, the National Security Strategy Committee warned in a September report.

The UK operates around 60 undersea cables connecting the country with the US, Scandinavia and mainland Europe. 

Mr Healey added that the threat to service personnel is being taken ‘extremely seriously’.

Mr Healey said: ‘Clearly, anything that impedes, disrupts or puts at risk pilots in charge of British military planes is deeply dangerous.

‘This is the first time we’ve had this action from Yantar directed against the British RAF.

‘We take it extremely seriously. I’ve changed the navy’s rules of engagement so that we can follow more closely, monitor more closely, the activities of the Yantar when it’s in our wider waters.

‘We have military options ready should the Yantar change course. I’m not going to reveal those, because that only makes President Putin wiser.’

The Yantar has been within the UK’s exclusive economic zone, which extends up to 200 nautical miles – about 230 miles – offshore, but has been on the edge of Britain’s territorial waters, within 12 nautical miles (13.8 miles) from the coast.

The incident with the laser is understood to have happened within the last fortnight.

While the Yantar looks innocuous as it is not equipped with weapons, the spy ship is among Russia’s most effective military assets. 

It masquerades as a oceanographic research vessel and is packed with surveillance equipment. The ship can also launch remotely operated vehicles capable of severing underwater cables.

The 112ft-long Yantar entered service in 2012. It has been seen in the UK’s wider waters and in Ireland’s economic exclusion zone. This month it was escorted from Dutch and Belgian waters. A Royal Navy submarine, HMS Astute, surfaced near the Yantar earlier this year in a warning to its crew.

A repeat of the submarine response could be one military option on the table, or warships could follow the example of the Dutch navy, which escorted the Yantar out of the Netherlands’ part of the North Sea earlier this month.

In Berlin, Ms Cooper suggested Russia’s actions were motivated by frustration at the lack of progress in Ukraine.

She said: ‘Russia has failed in its military objectives over the course of this year, so as a result, what we have seen them try to do is to seek continually to escalate.

‘We can see the approach they are taking, we have no illusions about what they are doing. We see what Putin is doing and we understand and we will continue to be vigilant and determined in our response.

‘Just as we have been about incursions into Nato airspace, just as we are being now in terms of identifying the Russian spy ship in UK waters and just as we have continued to be in response to sabotage threats that we have seen across many different European countries as well.

‘It will not deter us from supporting Ukraine, quite the opposite, because we know Ukraine’s security is our security.’

Defence expert Professor Michael Clarke told Sky News yesterday: ‘The submersibles Yantar can launch could be surveying cables and pipelines, they could be laying charges. Pipelines are different and don’t have back-up. Cables may not be so difficult.

‘Russia is building another of these ships. They are very sophisticated.’  

In recent months other Russian ghost fleet, or non-military vessels, have been identified monitoring areas of the UK coastline where these cables make landfall.

Mr Healey’s new guidance, known as Rules of Engagement, will permit ships and aircraft to follow the Yantar more closely when it is in the British economic exclusion zone – outside UK territorial waters.

The Yantar is operated by Russia’s highly secretive Main Directorate for Deep Sea Research, or GUGI, which is responsible for surveying Western maritime assets in peacetime and sabotaging this infrastructure during war.

Kremlin diplomats denied they were studying the UK’s undersea cables and warned Britain was risking further destabilisation of European security through its remarks.

The continuation of the Yantar’s reconnaissance campaign in the North Sea and other waters comes after multiple Russian incursions into Nato airspace in recent months.

More than 20 Russian drones have entered Polish airspace, some travelling more than 100 miles within the country, Russian warplanes have invaded Estonian airspace and Kremlin drones have shut down continental airports.

And this month UK drone specialists were deployed to Belgium to counter a threat to its airspace, thought to come from Russia.