The head of the UK’s armed forces has warned that Russian submarine activity is threatening underwater cables that are crucial to communication systems around the world.
Admiral Sir Tony Radakin said undersea cables that transmit internet data are “the world’s real information system,” and added that any attempt to damage them could be considered an “act of war.”
He said that meant Moscow could “put at risk and potentially exploit the world’s real information system, which is undersea cables that go all around the world.”
“That is where predominantly all the world’s information and traffic travels. Russia has grown the capability to put at threat those undersea cables and potentially exploit those undersea cables,” Radakin said.
The collision in December 2020 was filmed by a documentary crew from Channel 5 who were working on a television series called Warship: Life At Sea.
He highlighted Russia’s hypersonic and long-range missile capability as a threat and Britain’s comparative capabilities as a weakness. “We haven’t [got them] and we must have,” he said.
Radakin also said he had briefed ministers on Britain’s “military choices” if Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine, but did not reveal any further information.
Talks between Moscow, the United States, and Nato are scheduled for next week amid tensions sparked by a Russian military build-up on the Ukraine border, but Nato general secretary Jens Stoltenberg has said the alliance needs to prepare “for the possibility that diplomacy will fail.”
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss on Friday called for Russia to end its “malign activity” towards Ukraine.