Russia could cut UK transatlantic cables on day 1 of war - Royal Navy chief

Royal Navy chief Admiral Gwyn Jenkins told The Telegraph that Russia could attempt to cut Britain's transatlantic undersea cables on the first day of an armed conflict, drawing a parallel to Allied forces cutting German telegraph cables at the start of World War I. He said the UK faces threats unseen since the Cold War and must build a high-readiness fleet integrated with unmanned systems.

Jenkins said Russia is actively surveying and mapping the Atlantic seabed, requiring the Royal Navy to deploy roughly two warships a week just to track Russian intelligence vessels and shadow fleet tankers. The Navy has been allocated at least £1.3 billion for its hybrid fleet doctrine, including a recent first sea-launched deployment of an unmanned strike aircraft.

The warning follows other incidents cited alongside it: a foiled Russian submarine cable-cutting exercise near Svalbard, Polish intelligence warnings about possible infiltration into the Baltics, and a Wall Street Journal report that U.S. intelligence believes Putin may test NATO's Article 5 resolve between 2026 and 2029. Lithuania's Defense Ministry, by contrast, has said it sees no objective signs of an imminent full-scale invasion of the Baltic states.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.