Ministers and senior military leaders have warned that rising Russian activity and growing Chinese interest in the Arctic and High North are driving renewed focus on UK and NATO security in the region.
During a Defence Committee evidence session on 27 January, Defence Secretary John Healey confirmed that Russian military activity around the UK and across the wider North Atlantic remains on an upward trend, alongside an expanding pattern of hostile cyber operations linked to state actors.
Healey told MPs that a previously cited 30 percent increase in Russian activity in UK waters should be understood as a headline figure, but said the broader trend of aggression was clear. He pointed to increased maritime activity, incursions into NATO airspace, threats to critical infrastructure and the continued use of shadow shipping as indicators of a deteriorating security environment.
He added that cyber activity now forms a major part of the threat picture, telling the committee that the UK had experienced around 90,000 separate cyber attacks in the past year alone, with the majority assessed as linked to state or state-sponsored actors. “If you look at cyber in the last year alone, we’ve had 90,000 separate cyber attacks,” Healey said, adding that Russia, China and Iran were all linked to elements of that activity.
When questioned specifically on the extent of Russian subsea activity, both Healey and the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff declined to provide detailed breakdowns, citing the sensitivity of operational information. However, senior military leaders acknowledged a clear increase in threat levels.
General Dame Sharon Nesmith told the committee that while it would be inappropriate to delineate proportions of surface and subsurface activity in public, the overall direction of travel was unmistakable.
“We recognise the uptick in the threat, and therefore the need for us to do more about it in the high north either at surface or subsurface,” she said.
Nesmith linked the response to wider transformation within the Royal Navy, including efforts to accelerate capability delivery in response to the changing threat environment. She referenced the emerging Atlantic Bastion concept as part of a broader set of capabilities aimed at strengthening deterrence and responsiveness in the North Atlantic and Arctic approaches. Healey said the Northern Sea Route was becoming a focal point for both Russian activity and increasing Chinese interest, creating new strategic pressures in the High North.
“As climate change opens up that North, the Northern Sea Route opens up the link,” Healey said, adding that Russia’s closer alignment with certain partners following the war in Ukraine was also shaping the regional security picture.
Well, If we can’t deal with a solitary cargo ship in the Bristol Channel !!!!
(I’m sure this was on here a few days back) 🤔
I, along with no doubt most on this site, and the wider fraternity of followers of UK Defence matters, am getting sick to the back teeth of the “warnings” from HMG, the Def Sec, and so on, while continuing to cut the military and fudge the supposed increases so that little new money goes to the core military budget.
Rising activity in the High North? Terrible news. And you then send our only operational SSN to Australia in response.
Splendid stuff!
Government warns of other Chinese threats.
Starmer: Quick, let’s cosy up to them and let them build a mega embassy on a questionable location with redacted rooms.
Ah but he did get some Lords off their Sanction list !!! 🙄
The solution is to keep cutting the armed forces, isn’t it, Healey?
Defence select committee reports are what passes for news while we wait for the DIP. Some press reports of the struggles in cabinet to make the DIP budget fit the SDR; no NMH order – shades of the Heseltine Westland affair; Italy and Japan not impressed by rumours of possible funding delay in GCAP timetable – Prince William to visit Saudi to tout for involvement contribution; labour election wipe out in Wales if they cancel Ajax; no answer to the IFV issue. Fun, fun, fun. But no orders yet.
“ Italy and Japan not impressed by rumours of possible funding delay in GCAP timetable”
The problem with delaying GCAP is that it creates a fast jet GAP. As it is essential that it is entering service in 2035 to take the strain from Typhoon.
If the money isn’t spent on GCAP then we have to spend on more F35’s or Typhoon.
Chinas hasn’t had much if any ships in the arctic since 2015. Russia submarines seem to be on the decline as well. Russia “spy” ships operating in international waters seem to be the entire driver of “increased” activity.
We can have 500 surface combatants and there is nothing we can do about Russia spy ships sitting 12 miles off the coast or in the Bristol channel.
This is just a fact of life. We do exactly the same to the Russians flying RC135 right around their country and giving the targeting data to Ukraine.
The Artic threat is yet another self licking lollipop for the MoD. It’s the boogie man used to justify bigger budgets.
But hey the Chinese and Russian interest in Greenland is totally a lie!
It is since 2015.