With Donald Trump’s noisy war on Iran about to enter its third month, it can be easy to forget that another conflict is going on much closer to Britain’s shores. Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine is creeping towards a grim milestone of its own: by the beginning of June, it will have gone on for longer than the First World War. Today, Navy chief Sir Gwyn Jenkins issued a timely reminder that the danger posed by Moscow extended far beyond eastern Europe. ‘Russia remains the gravest threat to our security,’ he warned.

Speaking at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank in London, Jenkins, First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff, revealed that incursions by Russian ships and submarines into British waters had jumped by almost a third in the last two years. Last year alone, he added, the Royal Navy was forced to respond to Russian ships entering British waters ‘dozens of times’. Jenkins named Russia’s investment in its Northern Fleet submarine programme as the thing that ‘concerns me the most’.

Jenkins is not the first defence official this week to warn that the threat from Russia is growing more acute

Jenkins is not the first defence official this week to warn that the threat from Russia is growing more acute

At the beginning of the month,........

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