FILE IMAGE: gulfnewsjournal.com
The British Armed Forces will expand their naval presence in North Atlantic in order to counter the “growing Russian threat”, the head of the Royal Navy Admiral Sir Philip Jones told Sky News.
The admiral said that a new Joint Area of Operations (JAO) will be created there meaning more regular deployment of British ships and aircraft.
“It is an intensifying resurgence of capability and scale that we didn’t necessarily see coming maybe 10 years ago. We have had to respond to that – it is also very modern, it is very capable.
“The signature of their vessels, their deploy-ability, their capability is very impressive. They’ve clearly been investing in the research and development to be able to do this.”
He also claimed that alleged Russian actions over fibre-optic cables that run thousands of metres below the sea are one of the reasons.
“We are aware Russians have the capability to detect and work on those cables and of course they are doing this in very difficult environmental conditions, at very great depth,” Admiral Jones said.
“It’s not easy to work out exactly what’s going on. We have to assess what they’re doing. We have to track what they’re doing, we have to monitor what they’re doing both on and below the surface, and we seek to do that.”
Earlier, the US announced that it would re-establish its Second Fleet in the Atlantic, also in response to the alleged Russian threat.
