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.
[…]
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.
[…]
Undersea infrastructure was damaged in the past, so it’s not really a moot point. This is like the bobbies escorting a woman home who was being stalked after there was an uptick of rapes in the area.
No telling what might have happened if the Russians felt they weren’t being watched.
Kind of. It feels more like a guy who just looked like a rapist was escorted away. As per Russians, I’m sure they have other ways to mess with those cables if they wish to, such as submarines.
Why send submarines when you can just trawl over cables with civilian boats so no risk of retaliation basically.
“Oh whops. We forget anchor. How silly of us. Accident happen, is unfortunate.”
Telecoms cable break reported between Finland and Germany
That was yesterday. There was also another Swedish cable they broke. Oh sorry, that “broke for yet unknown reasons”.