Russian Spy Ship Lurks Around Google’s Newest Undersea Cable
On Tuesday, September 14, Google’s newest undersea cable made landfall at Crooklets Beach, near Bude, in North Cornwall, England. The Grace Hopper 16-fiber pair cable will link New York with the United Kingdom. Another branch of the cable, splitting off in mid-Atlantic, will reach Bilbao, in northern Spain. Undersea cables carry more than 95% of the world’s Internet traffic.
It may have been just a suggestive coincidence, but the Russian spy ship Yantar was spotted in the neighborhood at about the same time. Yantar—dubbed by the Russian navy an oceanographic vessel—is believed by naval analysts to have undersea cable-cutting capability. It is also able to spawn manned and unmanned deep-diving submarines. Therefore, it is unsurprising that Yantar is closely watched by western navies and intelligence services, especially when—as it often does—it loiters above strategic undersea cables.
Understandably, Yantar sightings cause something of a stir within the communities that monitor such things. Soon after Yantar’s 2015 launch, for example, Russia’s oceanographic vessel cruised the eastern seaboard of the United States, lingering off the U.S. Navy’s submarine base at King’s Bay, Georgia. Then it headed to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This was just after work on a sensitive Department of Defense cable—GTMO-1—was announced. GTMO-1 was to connect U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo with the Navy’s South Florida Ocean Measurement Facility at Dania Beach. An extension was to link Guantanamo with Fort Buchanan in Puerto Rico.
Other strategic locations at which Yantar has been sighted include Greenland, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea.
Most recently, as the ship laying the Grace Hopper cable approached the coast of North Cornwall, Yantar was spotted off the coast of South Cornwall, near the Lizard Peninsula, England’s southernmost point. As a naval vessel, Yantar legally turns its Automatic Information System (AIS) on and off. Consequently, it remains unclear, at least to the public, where it had been in the few days immediately preceding its entry into the English Channel, off the southern Cornish coast. The Royal Navy no doubt knows precisely where it was.
A few weeks earlier, Yantar was spotted off the Northwest coast of Ireland. Interestingly, two undersea cables make landfall there at Killala Bay, County Mayo. The Celtic-Norse Cable leads to Trondheim, Norway. TheAEConnect-1 cable connects to New York. Both are important not only to Ireland, but to the United Kingdom and Europe, beyond.
If cutting undersea cables is part of Russian military doctrine, one would expect its navy to conduct what in American parlance might be called intelligence preparation of the battlespace (IPB). If the contingency were to arise, the Russian Navy would want to have accumulated data about the exact lie of the cables, seabed and other oceanographic conditions, weather, subsurface obstructions, land junctions, surveillance, defenses, etc. The Russian Navy likely also tracks the time that it takes potentially hostile forces to react to its presence in key areas.
Yantar, with its submarines and SONAR capabilities is the ideal platform for the collection phase of IPB. Another Yantar class ship, Almaz, was announced in 2016.
Back at Yantar’s homeport on the Barents Sea, well above the Arctic Circle, is another indicator of Russia’s interest in deep sea operations. At the Olenya Guba submarine base, Russia may still be working to recover from a deadly 2019 fire aboard its Losharik submarine. Losharik is a short-range, deep-diving, nuclear-fueled submarine. It can be transported over long distances by a converted ballistic missile submarine called Podmoskovie. Given the attention that the appearance of the Yantar on the surface no doubt attracts, a submarine launching a smaller submarine could be an important asset to any cable-cutting plans Moscow may have.
Ashore, intelligence, cyber and economic analysts are no doubt calculating the damage that could be inflicted by cutting this or that cable or combination of cables. To larger, more diversified countries that damage will be limited because the Internet routes information packets around trouble, always finding the optimal route. However, western countries should bear in mind that the damage could be significant because it takes precious little to knock their societies and economies off kilter. A few strategically cut cables would amount to a major strike on critical infrastructure, diverting attention and resources at a moment of crisis.
Smaller countries with particular geographies may be at greater risk. For example, in 2008, 90% of Georgia’s Internet traffic traveled through Russia. When Russia invaded its southern neighbor, it choked Internet traffic to dominate the information space with its own narrative about how the war began. It was a Russian propaganda triumph. Today, most Georgian Internet traffic travels the Caucasus Cable System that connects Poti, Georgia, beneath the Black Sea, with Balchik, Bulgaria. One snip, and Georgia’s Internet could tumble back to 2008.
We must not discount Russia’s developing undersea cable-cutting capabilities. Meanwhile, China is out to buy up undersea cables, about which more in a future blog.
Copyright © 2021, David J. Smith