Countering Soviet Spy Ships - How the UK kept the SSBN force safe at sea
In 2025 the subject of Russian monitoring of British waters and vessels remains newsworthy. In April the Russian Ambassador to the UK confirmed that the Russians did attempt to monitor Royal Navy submarines, yet this is hardly new or novel. Throughout the Cold War, off the cold waters of Malin Head, the most northerly point of the island of Ireland, a small Soviet trawler would spend months at a time sitting and listening. Her target was not fish, but submarines. This vessel was intended to act as an intelligence collector, targeting the major US and Royal Navy submarine bases on the Clyde, to try and collect invaluable intelligence on the movements and characteristics of their submarines. The AGI was seen as a genuine threat to national security and led to a range of measures to counter its presence and protect the most sensitive national secrets. The Russians are known to have maintained converted trawlers off Malin Head and elsewhere for decades. By the 1980s there was growi...