A Russian spy ship that targeted RAF pilots with lasers threatens “our economics and our way of life”, a defence minister has warned.
Al Carns hit out after the vessel, the Yantar, was found operating off the northern coast of Scotland and pointed lasers at the surveillance aircraft monitoring its activities.
No one was injured, he told MPs, but the move was a “highly dangerous and reckless attempt to disrupt our surveillance”.
In a defiant message to Moscow, he added: “We will not let the Yantar go unchallenged as it attempts to survey our infrastructure, and we will work with our allies to ensure that Russia knows that any attempt to disrupt or damage underwater infrastructure will be met with the firmest of responses.”
But James Cartlidge, the shadow defence secretary, warned this was “a serious escalation by Russian forces in close proximity to our homeland”.
The Russian embassy in the UK has accused the government of being “Russophobic” and “whipping up militaristic hysteria”.
The Ministry of Defence has said the ship is part of a Russian programme driven by what is called the Main Directorate of Deep-Sea Research and “designed to have capabilities which can undertake surveillance in peacetime and sabotage in conflict”.
The RAF pilots targeted by lasers, during the incursion that is understood to have happened within the past fortnight, had been monitoring the ship’s activities after it breached UK waters for the second time this year.
Mr Carns told the House of Commons: “The UK understands that the Yantar is but one in a fleet to threaten our critical national underwater infrastructure and pose a threat, indeed, to our economics and our way of life. Russia has been developing a military capable to use against critical underwater infrastructure for decades.”
On Wednesday, defence secretary John Healey said the UK was exploring military options if the ship sails closer to British shores and was ready to respond if it heads south from its current position.
He said: “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 laser attack emerged after a damning new report by MPs warned that Britain is not ready to defend itself from a major attack.
The Commons defence committee issued a stark message about the UK’s ability to fight a war and meet its Nato obligations in the wake of Putin’s war in Ukraine, saying Britain does not currently have a plan to protect itself.
