UK in talks with telecoms industry on undersea cable threat

The Ministry of Defence has been engaging with private sector partners including the telecoms industry to discuss the threat posed to undersea telecommunications infrastructure by Russian sub-threshold interference, Armed Forces Minister Al Carns confirmed in a parliamentary answer on 22 April.

Asked by Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty what discussions the Defence Secretary had held with the telecoms industry on countering the threat, Carns said the MoD was *”committed to a collaborative approach between government and private sector to work together on national resilience”, adding that the Defence Secretary had engaged with industry as part of “a broader effort to protect critical national infrastructure from a range of threats, including Russian sub-threshold interference.”

Carns confirmed the work sits alongside the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology’s lead on telecoms security, suggesting a cross-government approach to what has become one of the most prominent infrastructure security concerns facing the UK.

The parliamentary answer comes less than two weeks after Defence Secretary John Healey revealed that the Royal Navy had spent more than a month tracking a Russian attack submarine and two spy submarines operating near undersea cable infrastructure north of the UK, forcing all three vessels to return to their bases, with Healey warning that “any attempt to damage them will not be tolerated and will have serious consequences.”

The same Russian spy vessel Yantar had previously been tracked loitering over UK offshore cables in January, with Healey describing the broader Russian programme as one specifically designed to survey underwater infrastructure during peacetime and sabotage it in conflict.

The threat has been building for some time, with a series of cable severings in the Baltic Sea in late 2024 raising alarm across NATO member states, and the UK having launched the Atlantic Bastion programme to develop a combination of autonomous vessels, advanced sensors and naval assets specifically to counter Russian undersea activity.