Overview
- HMS Severn tracked the corvette RFN Stoikiy and tanker Yelnya through the Dover Strait before handing close monitoring to a NATO partner off Brittany while maintaining a distant watch.
- The Ministry of Defence reports Russian naval activity near UK waters has increased by about 30% in two years, driving sustained surveillance from the Channel to the High North.
- Three RAF P-8A Poseidon aircraft are operating from Keflavik, Iceland, under NATO tasking to monitor ships and submarines across North Atlantic and Arctic routes.
- UK officials say the vessel Yantar directed lasers at an RAF P-8 and jammed nearby GPS near northwest Scotland; pilots were medically assessed and no injuries were reported.
- Defence Secretary John Healey has tightened rules to shadow Yantar more closely in UK wider waters, while Russia’s embassy rejects the UK account as inflating tensions.