Royal Navy worried about Russian superyachts – Times
The UK reportedly suspects that the leisure vessels may used for spying on nuclear submarines
The Royal Navy believes that luxury superyachts owned by wealthy Russians have been spying on British nuclear submarines, the Sunday Times has reported, citing three defense sources.
The navy had “credible intelligence” that, before Russia’s military operation in Ukraine began in 2022, yachts may have been used “to conduct underwater reconnaissance around Britain,” the newspaper claimed.
The Sunday Times suggested that some vessels have moon pools that can be secretly used to launch and retrieve deep-sea renaissance and diving equipment.
The newspaper quoted an unnamed foreign minister as saying that, in 2018, the amphibious assault ship HMS Albion had to leave the port of Limassol in Cyprus early after “a huge superyacht belonging to an oligarch pulled up alongside it.”
The navy has discovered a number of sensors it believes to be Russian in the seas around the UK, the newspaper said, adding that the British theory is that Moscow is spying on the UK’s four nuclear-capable Vanguard submarines.
Earlier this year, The Sun reported that the Royal Navy went on a days-long search to track sounds it believed belonged to a Russian stealth submarine. The suspicious noises were later reported to have been made by a farting whale.
In 2014, Sweden launched a major operation looking for a suspected Russian submarine, which turned out to be a civilian boat.
