What are the odds that Vladimir Putin is going to be cowed when British Defence Secretary John Healey warns him ‘we see you. We see your activity over our cables and our pipelines, and you should know that any attempt to damage them will not be tolerated and will have serious consequences’? Pretty poor, it is safe to say. Yet what might seem like a harmless piece of political grandstanding actually carries serious risks for the UK.

Healey was briefing on a recent operation to monitor two submarines from GUGI, the Russian Navy’s Main Directorate of Deep-Sea Research, which spent a month surveying undersea cables in and near Britain’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Extending 200 nautical miles from a country’s coastline, the EEZ is not the same as our territorial waters, which are only up to 12 nautical miles deep. Other countries’ ships can operate freely there, so long as they are not fishing or mining. 

How long before voters tire of the ‘Russians are coming’ line?

How long before voters tire of the ‘Russians are coming’ line?

The presence, additionally, of an Akula-class nuclear-powered attack submarine as a decoy or escort was a concern, but the fact is that GUGI had every legal right to be there, even if Britain is naturally suspicious of their intent. It doesn’t mean that Moscow is imminently preparing to damage these cables carrying power and telecommunications traffic (many of the attacks in the Baltic Sea for which they were........

© The Spectator