Russian agents operating from fake fishing boats were “almost certainly” behind internet cables off Shetland being cut, a leading military intelligence expert said. Crucial communications lines were severed at two points in October, sparking a major police incident with web access, phones and cash machines on the island all affected.
At the time the official explanation was that it was a fishing accident. But in an interview with the Sunday Mail, Colonel Philip Ingram MBE said Putin may have been behind the incident – to send a message to the UK. It emerged last week that Russia has a programme to sabotage North Sea wind farms and communication cables off Scotland’s coast using a fleet of vessels disguised as fishing trawlers.
A joint probe by public broadcasters in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland has accused Russia of carrying underwater surveillance equipment to map key sites for possible sabotage. Ingram, a former military intelligence officer, said: “Almost certainly it was the Russians sending a message to the UK that they could do this.
“Around the time of that incident, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace announced the purchase of two new survey ships that can help look at our critical national infrastructure – undersea cables and pipelines – to monitor for tampering. He’s not going to buy two civilian ships to bring into the Navy if there isn’t a real threat.
“Russian use of spy trawlers is nothing new, they had them during the Cold War. They used them to sail around the UK coastline following every military exercise they could. They were bristling with antenna and hoovered up as many communications as possible. The same thing is happening now.
“They’re also surveying power and communications cables. We have seen throughout the Ukraine war that the Russians use energy as a weapon.
“This ship has been travelling through the Baltic, surveying infrastructure from Baltic countries. It has now come out into the North Sea and is going around the UK.
“The other interest is our submarines coming in and out of Rosyth. These vessels will be able to carry sabotage equipment on board without any difficulty. It is well within the
Russian psyche to use such equipment if they feel they need to.” One of an estimated 50 “ghost” Russian ships – the Admiral Vladimirsky – often sails with tracking equipment turned off. It was reportedly sighted off the Scottish coast last year, close to offshore wind farm sites.
It was spotted entering the Moray Firth on November 10 and also seen about 30 nautical miles east of Lossiemouth, home to the RAF’s Maritime Patrol Aircraft fleet.
When a reporter approached the ship on a small boat, he was confronted by a masked man carrying a military assault rifle. On October 20 a subsea cable connecting Shetland and the Faroe Islands was damaged, with a separate cable linking Shetland with the Scottish mainland also cut.
In an interview with the Sunday Mail, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly didn’t rule out Russian sabotage being behind the incident. He said: “We’re constantly having to defend ourselves against digital attack from state and non-state actors.”
At the time the Shetland cable was cut, Russia’s Boris Petrov scientific research ship was tracked in the vicinity. It has been designated a “vessel of interest” by western navies.
The Scottish Government has refused to publicly blame Russia for the Shetland incident but a similar cable cut off Norway last year was blamed on “human activity” by Norwegian authorities. A similar incident in the south of France was also concluded to have been a coordinated attack.
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