A Russian spy ship has been escorted out of the Irish Sea after it entered Irish-controlled waters and patrolled an area containing critical energy and internet submarine pipelines and cables.
It was spotted on Thursday east of Dublin and south-west of the Isle of Man but Norwegian, US, French and British navy and air defence services initially observed it accompanying a Russian warship, the Admiral Golovko, through the English channel last weekend.
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Its presence has raised fresh concerns about the security of the interconnector cables that run between Ireland and the UK carrying global internet traffic from huge datacentres operated by tech companies including Google and Microsoft, which have their EU headquarters sited in Ireland.
The sighting of the Russian intelligence ship came as British defence forces monitored other Russian vessels near its eastern coastal waters. On Thursday, British jets were also scrambled to monitor a Russian reconnaissance aircraft flying close to UK airspace, the Ministry of Defence said.
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Out of curiosity, is that area protected by (international) law?
It’s in the Irish EEZ, which means it’s navigable waters for everyone, but the Irish can drill for oil or put down undersea cables. The “escorted away” thing legally looks like as when someone wants to break into a store and is walking around the storefront with a crowbar, and police come out and just observe and deter the likely perp until they go away.
They can’t tell the vessel to go away, but they can put a few proverbial spotlights on it so it doesn’t do things it shouldn’t be doing.
Oh, BTW, this is exactly the sort of situation that goes down again and again in China, except there the Chinese actively ram ships and endanger aircraft in their EEZ.
So, basically, it’s a moot point. But I can see the motivation of escorting the ship away. Chinese are on a different level, of course.