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A British warship and aircraft tracked and monitored Russian submarines attempting to survey vital undersea infrastructure in the North Atlantic, ensuring they abandoned their mission, the defence secretary, John Healey, has announced.

Speaking at a Downing Street press conference, Healey said the UK operation lasted more than a month and saw a Royal Navy warship and P8 marine patrol aircraft “track and to deter any malign activity” by three Russian submarines.

The Russian action took place “while the eyes of many were trained on the Middle East”, because of the US-Israel attack on Iran, Healey said.

He said: “I’m making this statement to call out this Russian activity, and to President Putin, I say: ‘We see you. We see your activity over our cables and our pipelines, and you should know that any attempt to damage them will not be tolerated and will have serious consequences’.”

Healey said there was no evidence pipelines or cables had been damaged, but that with allies, UK forces would seek to verify this.

More details soon …