The UK Defence Secretary has announced that a Russian reconnaissance ship has used a laser for the first time to disrupt RAF pilots who were monitoring the vessel’s operations near British waters.
According to UK Defence Secretary John Hill, the government views the “hazardous” actions of the Yantar as “extremely serious”.
Healy noted that the Russian ship had been in the north of Scotland and had entered UK territorial waters for the second time this year in recent weeks.
“We continue to monitor the ship and have a range of military options in place should the Yantar change course,” the minister said.
“My message to Russia and Putin is this: we see you, we know what you are doing. And if the Yantar moves south this week, we are ready,” Healy stressed.
He explained that the laser incident occurred while the Yantar was being escorted by a Royal Navy frigate and Poseidon P-8 anti-submarine aircraft, which had been sent to “monitor the ship’s every move.”
The incident is believed to have taken place in the past two weeks.
Healy added that he had changed the Royal Navy’s rules of engagement to allow it to monitor the Yantar more closely while it was in British waters.
The minister said the ship, commissioned in 2015, belonged to Russia’s Main Directorate of Deep-Sea Research, which was created “to conduct reconnaissance in peacetime and to carry out subversive operations in the event of a conflict.”
