The Russians Are Coming (again)...

“The Russians Are Coming – PANIC” – this seems to be the default reaction in some quarters whenever a Russian warship comes near UK waters. According to some commentators the Russians pose a clear threat to our national security, and it is usually either a source of concern that the Royal Navy has to ‘scramble’ an escort vessel towards Scottish waters (cue complaints that there are allegedly no warships in Scotland) or that whichever ship is escorting is not appropriate for the role.

The latest in this series of incidents involves the arrival of a new visitor to UK waters, the ‘Admiral Gorshkov’, a new class of vessel that entered service in 2018, along with a couple of support ships and the ubiquitous rescue tug that has to accompany most Russian surface warships during deployments.

Roughers!

There are several compelling issues that arise from this news. The first is that the Gorshkov is a timely reminder that for all the (unfair) complaints about UK shipbuilding delays, Russia is hardly leading the way. Laid down in 2006, and intended as the first of a class of 20-30 such vessels, with an intended completion date of 2009, the Gorshkov was launched in 2010 and took a further 8 years to commission. Of the other 6 units on order, one was laid down in 2009 and is currently doing sea trials, the remainder are stuck under construction with no progress or commissioning date in sight.

This slow progress reminds us that for all the incredible videos, CGI imagery or models of theoretical naval plans and power in Russia, they are very much a surface navy in decline. While their submarine force remains a credible and capable force, their surface fleet is increasingly elderly and struggling to generate new major vessels.

The bulk of the fleet relies on very old hulls dating back to the cold war, such the as the Sovremmeny and Udaloy class, the youngest of which are now approaching 30 years old. Other than a small number of  craft completed in the 1990s, the Russian Navy remains a force with ageing hulls and limited capability. The loss of critical naval engineering facilities in the Ukraine, which played a central part in shipbuilding will almost certainly hamper their long term prospects for building a revitalised force.

It is also telling that the Gorshkov has sailed with a rescue tug to accompany her on her first deployment. This points to two key facts- firstly that Russia is so internationally isolated diplomatically due to the hostile and aggressive policies of its leadership that they are unable to be certain of having a port to pull into for emergency repairs.

Secondly, it points to a real concern that the newest frigate in the Russian navy is unable to deploy without a tug. Can you imagine the outcry if a Royal Navy vessel deployed with an accompanying tug to tow her back to Portsmouth harbour in a crisis? That Russian surface naval deployments require this for even a very routine passage, let alone going to war, speaks volumes for the capability and reliability of the Russian surface navy.

The situation was that the Russian force temporarily anchored in the Moray Firth in an area traditionally used by Russian vessels to take shelter from a storm before proceeding further south through the channel.

Given all of this, it is hard to wonder what there is to worry about, yet some commentators have found cause for alarm. There was at least one tweet suggesting that the presence of the Russian vessels off the coast of Scotland, in a position to conduct ‘air defence’ and ‘counter-sabotage exercises’ represents a ‘failure’ of UK defence policy.

There are several issues to consider here. Firstly, the ships in question did not anchor in UK territorial waters – they instead anchored in international waters. There is absolutely no suggestion that they have done anything wrong in doing so. Royal Navy ships routinely operate in international waters close to other nations – for example last year HMS DUNCAN was operating in the Black Sea.

Tweet in question

To suggest that it is a failure of defence policy to stop a group of ships sailing at sea from anchoring in international waters is, frankly, an astonishingly unprofessional attack on the hard working men and women of the MOD and British Armed Forces. There is no way that this group could have been stopped from anchoring here short of taking actions that would have resulted in a potential war with Russia – which seems a bit over the top. Just because a ship is near your coast, does not mean that you have the automatic right to ‘stop it’.

It is hard to work out how the ship could have conducted an ‘air defence exercise’ as it was lacking any aircraft to operate with it. Traditionally such exercises require friendly jets to help operate effectively – something that the Royal Navy does at FOST, with both the Hawks of 736 Naval Air Squadron and other supporting assets.

The Russians would have been unable to conduct such an exercise as they would not have had any aircraft able to approach the vessel due to it being in UK airspace. Any attempts to get close by their long range aircraft such as the Backfires or Bears would have been intercepted by the Typhoons of RAF Lossiemouth. It is also worth noting that unlike Russia, the UK would not have sent swarms of aircraft to conduct mock air attacks on the vessel, which is what happened to HMS DUNCAN in 2018 in the Black Sea.

Similarly a ‘counter-sabotage’ exercise implies that the Russians are training to prevent sabotage occurring on their vessel. Mindful that there is form in this area, particularly with the unfortunate ‘Buster Crabbe’ incident of the 1950s. But it is unlikely that the UK would particularly want to spend time putting frogmen near a Russian vessel in international waters during stormy weather. It is therefore hard to understand what the risk to UK national security was in this context.

On a practical perspective, had the Russian Commanding Officer decided to activate any sensors or weapons in the area, then he would have found himself knighted in the next New Years Honours list for ‘Services to British Intelligence’ as the intelligence community would have reaped an enormous dividend from having a Russian vessel conducting live firing exercises in their backyard for once. It would certainly be easier to collect data from than the more usual cold war routine of sending submarines into much colder and choppier waters to scuttle about as uninvited guests…

HMS DEFENDER

It is therefore extremely difficult to understand what the fuss is all about, or why people think the UK has somehow failed. The reality is that a Russian vessel has anchored in international waters and has continued on their way with the minimum of fuss and disruption.

While some may complain that the UK didn’t have an escort vessel to hand immediately once the ships went to anchor, it is difficult to understand why this was necessary. Just because a ship is off your coast does not mean you need to send a vessel in a hurry to sit there and sail racetrack loops around while recording fly tipping incidents.

These incidents usually cause a range of angry rants about how our national security is threatened, yet other than the Dogger Bank incident in 1904, it is hard to think of any circumstance where a Russian vessel sailing in international waters close to the UK has opened fire or started a war. While the Russian regime may be a tremendously uncultured and uncivilised bunch of thugs, if they do want to try and incompetently stage an attack of UK soil, they tend to do so via the medium of barely competent GRU agents/cathedral spotters, not warships that may be prone to break down at any moment…