A Russian naval vessel was recently observed “loitering” near UK offshore wind farms in the English Channel , according to a NATO source cited by iPaper .
iPaper reported that the vessel was seen at the eastern entrance of the English Channel, around 50 kilometers off the coast of Colchester, and that it had left the location and moved away from the Channel by afternoon on April 14.
The vessel is the Kremlin Amur Class Repair Ship PM-82, designed for the repair and maintenance of other ships and submarines, and its sighting comes days after the UK government revealed recent activity that it says included a covert Russian submarine operation in and around UK waters.
As reported earlier this month, the UK Ministry of Defence said it had tracked a Russian attack submarine in waters in and around the UK, and concluded that the submarine was deployed as a distraction while vessels from the Russian Main Directorate of Deep Sea Research (GUGI) were “conducting nefarious activity over critical undersea infrastructure elsewhere”.
The UK government stated on April 9 that the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force (RAF), in cooperation with allies, tracked the Russian vessels until they left UK waters and returned to Russia.
The recent reports on Russian activity near offshore energy infrastructure in the North Sea follow several NATO and national defense reports from a few years ago that said Russia was conducting surveillance and could pose a risk to the energy infrastructure that has been installed off the coasts of the North Sea countries.
READ ON OFFSHOREWIND.BIZ: Dutch Intelligence Warns Russia May Be Preparing to Sabotage Offshore Wind, Gas and Cable Infrastructure in North Sea
In 2024, amid concerns arising from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and reports of possible sabotage of offshore and subsea energy infrastructure in the North and Baltic Seas, six North Sea countries and, separately, eight Baltic Sea countries signed joint declarations to collaborate more closely to secure critical offshore energy infrastructure.