IA “FACT” already wrote on how Russia is waging an invisible war on the seabed: using underwater drones, pseudo-scientific vessels and oligarch superyachts to spy on British nuclear submarines and strategic internet cables. Vessels like the Russian “Amber“, equipped with deep-sea vehicles capable of not only observing but also physically disabling underwater infrastructure. This is not just intelligence, it is strategic sounding, a hybrid war that requires an immediate response from the West.
While the Euro-Atlantic community is making plans and analyzing threats, nuclear torpedoes are already operating in the ocean depths”Poseidon“, submarine for underwater sabotage “Losharik” and luxury yachts as platforms for drones. Everything flying the Russian flag is part of the Russian imperial aggression. If the democratic world does not wake up, the next phase of the war will begin in the silence of the ocean depths – with catastrophic consequences for digital civilization.
Under water are not just cables, but the nervous system of civilization
All these “science” missions, deep-sea probe yachts and nameless drones appearing off the coast of Britain have one thing in common: they are not looking for minerals. They look for vulnerabilities, where a cable runs, where a base is located, where a nuclear submarine patrols with a nuclear warhead on board. And these coordinates are needed not just for statistics, but for blackmail, sabotage, paralysis.
It is known that more than 95% of the global Internet does not pass through satellites, but rather through cables laid at the bottom of the seas. Russia not only maps these lines, it fixes nodes, branching points, technical junctions. It is these points that are most vulnerable to disruption, connection or destruction.
As reported The Telegraph, British intelligence is confident that one of the main objectives is to detect the route of Vanguard-class submarines carrying Trident II D5 nuclear missiles. If you know where the boat is, you can track it and attack first in case of conflict.
After undermining It became obvious to “Nord Stream” that the pipeline is not so much an economic as a military-political track. And Russian devices are able to pass the route of a marine pipeline in a few hours, collect accurate data about its condition, protection, control systems and send a signal: we know what you have under water.
Russian underwater spies collect geospatial coordinates and three-dimensional models of cable networks, acoustic signatures of submarines: radiation, movement, thermal traces, activity of underwater infrastructure sensors. This allows developing scenarios of undermining or cutting communication at the points of greatest effect, in particular, between the US and Britain.
Each nuclear boat has its own “signature”. If Russia records Vanguard’s signature, it can track down any patrol in real time. This removes the deterrent effect of the nuclear triad, because the submarine is no longer “invisible”. This allows modeling how the system behaves in normal mode and how it can respond to interference.
If the situation does not change, several scenarios await us. First, in the event of a war, large-scale sabotage of the underwater infrastructure is possible. In the first hours of the conflict, Russia can paralyze communications between North America and Europe without even launching a missile. One underwater explosion – and the stock exchanges are silent, armies have no coordinates, citizens are in a panic.
Second, there may be an expansion of tactics to the Arctic, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Pacific Ocean. After tests in the waters of Scotland, Russia may transfer the same platforms to the Sea of Japan, where the US and Japan are actively developing underwater infrastructure.
Third, the collected data can be used to intimidate, blackmail or extort: ”We know where your cables are. We know where your boat is. Don’t provoke.”
When Russia launches an underwater drone near the coast of Britain, it is not a search for data, but a signal that it is already under your feet. She already is knows, where your nerve can click at any moment.
One deep-sea attack is enough to unleash an apocalyptic scenario. The proof of this is the scenario simulated back in 2020 reports RAND Corporation.
And if anyone thought that it was about the future, it should be borne in mind: in the last 15 months it was damaged at least 11 submarine cables in the Baltic. Some of them are in the zones where Russian vessels operated. Accident? Technical error? Perhaps. But, as Winston Churchill said, “there are no accidents in politics. If something happened, then it was meant to be.”
What should the West do today, so as not to wake up in silence without the Internet, communication and command
Underwater warfare is not the future, but the present. And that is why the West should act not tomorrow, not after the commission’s report, but immediately. Because if the Kremlin knows where our cables are, we should know how to protect them. If Moscow uses “science vessels” and superyachts as spy platforms, we must have law and enforcement to prevent them from operating with impunity.
While Russia launches unmanned vehicles from yachts and “Amber”, the USA and Britain are only testing the first models. This is unacceptable. However, the USA already ordered from the Boeing company a series of autonomous drones Orca XLUUV (Extra Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicle), which should operate at great depths without human intervention.
At the same time, we should not delay the massive deployment of Orca and British Manta projects in strategic areas – the North and Irish Seas, as well as in the Atlantic. It is necessary to organize a joint underwater patrol with France and Norway. Integrate drones into the NATO command structure as a separate combat component.
Today, the Russian oligarch’s superyacht can moor near the NATO strategic base — and launch a device on board that will monitor the Vanguard submarine. And international law cannot prevent this. To bring the situation under control, it is necessary to update the Geneva Convention on the Use of Civilian Ships for Military Purposes. If a yacht or research vessel has dual-use technical equipment, this should automatically subject them to monitoring as objects of risk.
It is also worth entering in NATO legislation norm: any detection of an underwater vehicle without a declared purpose in critical zones is an act of aggression. Finally, a sanctions mechanism should be introduced against shipowners who “helped the Russian Federation in gathering information”, even without direct evidence of sabotage.
NATO has a fleet and a strategy. But there is no awareness that the underwater infrastructure is the same front as the Baltic or the Black Sea. Yes, in 2023 NATO created center for monitoring underwater infrastructure in Belgium. But it is urgent to declare the North Atlantic a zone of daily underwater control, with member states rotating. And also to create the “NATO Undersea Response Force” command – with a fleet of devices, crews, quick reaction.
The US has created an anti-missile shield Aegis. Now we need a shield at the bottom of the ocean – a sensor system for deep-sea observation that records movement, vibrations, sound, and temperature changes.
There are already prototypes: DARPA and NOAA in the USA are working on Deep Sea Sensing Grids. In 2022, testing of the PALS — Passive Acoustic Listening System — began.
However, research systems need to be urgently transformed into combat ones: through connection to military satellites and NATO centers and mass installation of sensors near bases, cables, patrol areas of Vanguard, Triumphant, Ohio.
…And if tomorrow is silence? No internet, no communication, no coordinates for armies and commands for headquarters. If the stock exchanges, servers suddenly become silent, the satellite signal disappears – not because the war has started, but because its first blow has already been struck from the depths? This is not a fantasy, not the future – this is a scenario that Russia is preparing for right now. And if the West does not realize that the bottom of the ocean is the same front as the Baltic or Donbas, then the next war will not start with the explosion of a rocket, but with the darkness and silence under the water.
Tetyana Viktorova
