BRITAIN and its allies tracked three Russian submarines loitering over critical undersea cables in the North Atlantic for a month before they retreated, Defence Secretary John Healey claimed today.

He told a Downing Street press conference that there had been “increased Russian activity” in waters off Britain’s northern coast in the past few weeks.

Britain, in partnership with Norway and other allies, deployed a warship and aircraft to deter the “malign” activity involving a Russian Akula-class nuclear-powered attack submarine and two specialist submarines from Russia’s ministry of defence deep sea research programme known as Gugi (Main Directorate of Deep-Sea Research), he said.

Mr Healey said that the attack submarine acted as “a likely decoy to distract us from” the Gugi submarines which had been within Britain’s exclusive economic zone but not within its territorial waters.

“A Royal Navy warship and Royal Air Force P-8 aircraft alongside allies ensured that the Russian submarines were monitored 24/7,” he said.

“Our armed forces left them in no doubt that they were being monitored, that their movements were not covert, as President Putin planned, and that their attempted secret operation had been exposed.”

The Akula submarine returned home and Britain continues to monitor the two Gugi submarines “in and around wider UK waters,” he said. 

Five hundred British personnel were involved in the now-concluded month-long operation, the Defence Secretary said.

The government has faced criticism for assisting the US-Israeli war on Iran by shooting down Iranian missiles and drones aimed at bases across the region being used to launch attacks on Iran.