Terrifying way Vladimir Putin could bring UK to its knees with one simple move

Brits have been warned how Russia could deliver a striking blow to our everyday lives from under the sea.

Relations between the West and became with the United States permitting to use longer range missiles and Moscow has claimed that they have already struck a weapons warehouse in Bryansk.

And a former Royal Navy diving officer has told how the UK is vulnerable to a potential attack by Russia through cables and pipelines underwater.

People are now reliant on almost digital information in the today and more than 99% of the data moving globally comes via undersea cables, said Lewis Page.

While the UK also receives 15% of our electricity from cables under the water from the Continent and 40% of the gas comes from sea pipelines.

READ MORE:

“We are utterly dependent on seabed infrastructure to keep the lights on, to heat our homes, to power our remaining businesses and to keep the data flowing – the lifeblood of some of our most important industries,” he told the “Some $10 trillion in financial transfers are handled by the cable system every single day.”

And it comes as Germany’s defence minister Boris Pistorius said officials have to assume damage to two data cables under the Baltic Sea, one of which ends in Germany, was caused by sabotage — though he said they have no proof at present.

Damage was detected on Monday to the C-Lion1 cable that runs nearly 750 miles from Finland’s capital, Helsinki, to the German port city of Rostock. Another cable between Lithuania and Sweden was also damaged.

Mr Pistorius said that Russia poses not just a military but also a hybrid threat, and that Europe needs to take a broad approach to defense. He said the damage to the two cables was “a very clear sign that something is afoot”.

“No one believes these cables were severed by mistake, and I also don’t want to believe versions that it was anchors that by chance caused damage to these cables,” he said. “So we have to state — without knowing in concrete terms who it came from — that this is a hybrid action. And we also have to assume — without already knowing it, obviously — that this is sabotage.”

The foreign ministries of Finland and Germany had already said Monday evening that the damage raised suspicion of sabotage.

They said in a joint statement that the damage comes at a time that “our European security is not only under threat from Russia‘s war of aggression against Ukraine, but also from hybrid warfare by malicious actors.”

The statement said the countries were investigating the incident, and that it was crucial that such “critical infrastructure” be safeguarded.

On Tuesday, Swedish police said they had launched a preliminary investigation into suspected sabotage regarding the two cable breaches, though they said the classification of the suspected offense “may change.”

Meanwhile Mr Page said that an attack on undersea infrastructure much deeper than the Nord Stream sabotage would require divers with “heavy surface support facilities” or a remotely operated vehicle. He reportedly said how worryingly the Russian ship Yantar was seen “hanging around above some important connections in the middle of the Irish Sea”.

The Yantar belongs to the Main Directorate of Deep-Sea Research, or GUGI – a secret organisation allied to the Russian navy. Mr Page said that due to the presence of a vessel it is easier to spot potential sabotage although the for carrying it out is not complex.

He added: “This sort of capability, well established with the Russians and new to us, is a bit less common around the world than sabotage divers are. But it’s still not advanced, expensive or difficult: suitable ships and machinery can easily and cheaply be purchased from the offshore industry.”