Royal Navy Monitors Russian Spy Ship Loitering Near NATO Exercise

The Royal Navy reports that it is continuing to monitor the movement of Russian warships in the waters around the UK. While it is a regular operation for the navy, awareness has increased since the recent incidents in the Baltic with undersea infrastructure and the continuing concern over the shadow fleet of tankers.

One of the recent deployments involved monitoring the Russian “intelligence gathering ship” Yuri Ivanov which the Royal Navy reports was loitering in the waters off the Outer Hebrides in Scotland. In addition, a Russian corvette was also monitored as it was escorting merchant ships through the English Channel.

“Monitoring activity on the seas and seabed around the UK is one of the core roles of the Royal Navy’s 2nd Mine-Countermeasures Squadron,” said Lieutenant Commander James Bradshaw, Commanding Officer of Hunt-class minehunter HMS Hurworth, which was deployed as part of the monitoring in the English Channel. “This operation was all in a day’s work for the ship’s company who have shown great professionalism.”

The Russian spy ship was tracked from the Outer Hebrides where it was spotted following the completion of NATO’s exercise Formidable Shield which took place in the region. NATO had reported that it would be the largest live-fire naval exercise in Europe. It had begun in Norway earlier in the month and later moved to the waters off Scotland. It involved NATO, UK, Norwegian, and U.S. forces with both air and sea assets deployed from a total of nine nations.

The Yuri Ivanov is one of two 95-meter (312-foot) surveillance vessels Russia placed in operation in 2015. The U.S. has reported in the past that the vessel is equipped with antennae and electronics intended to provide intelligence-gathering, surveillance, electronic warfare, command and control, communications, fleet management, and signals intelligence capabilities tacking naval assets and can also perform air defense missile systems detection and tracking.

The Portsmouth-based Type 45 destroyer HMS Dragon was deployed to monitor the vessel and track its movements. It also deployed its Merlin helicopter to collect information about the vessel’s activities. They continued to track the vessel until it headed north toward its home base in the Arctic.

Russian corvette being tracked by the Royal Navy during a transit through the English Channel (Royal Navy)

Late on May 18, HMS Ledbury was also dispatched to monitor the Russian Steregushchiy-class corvette RFN Stoikiy. The UK shadowed the Russian warship which was sailing west through the English Channel. It later met up with two merchant vessels, Sparta IV and General Skobelev, which were returning from the Mediterranean the Royal Navy reports.

HMS Hurworth took over the monitoring on May 19 off Brighton and watched the Stoikiy and the two merchant ships. The operation concluded on the afternoon of May 22 when the vessels entered the North Sea.

The Royal Navy also reports that during the English Channel transit, it deployed aircraft from the Naval Air Squadron at Culdrose. Aircraft and warships from NATO allies were also involved.