- UK launches Atlantic Bastion program to protect undersea cables and pipelines from Russian threats
- Initiative combines autonomous vessels, advanced sensors, and naval assets, with deployments expected in 2026
- Recent Baltic Sea cable and power line sabotage incidents highlight urgency amid Russia‑Ukraine conflict
The UK government has started working on Atlantic Bastion, a new military program aimed at strengthening the security of its undersea critical infrastructure.
In a press release published on the UK.gov site earlier this week, it was said that Atlantic Bastion’s goal was to secure these assets from Russian undersea threats.
Russian submarine and underwater activity has reportedly picked up in recent years, and the country has been hard at work modernizing its fleet “to target critical undersea cables and pipelines”. Europe’s eastern neighbor has allegedly been seen mapping out key locations of undersea critical infrastructure, with the UK government mentioning Russian spy ship Yantar that was recently spotted “around UK waters”.
Next phase soon
This year alone, the UK will have invested “millions of pounds” into development and testing of innovative anti-submarine sensor technology.
Atlantic Bastion will be a combination of autonomous surface and underwater vessels, cutting-edge digital infrastructure, and warships and patrol aircraft. This will enable the UK navy to act against its adversaries “with unprecedented effectiveness across vast areas of ocean”.
The next phase of action, which should kick off “in the coming weeks”, is to take the projects from concept to the frontline. Some capabilities are expected to be deployed in the water next year, with investments accelerating in the year that follows.
In recent months, multiple undersea internet (fibre-optic) cables in the Baltic Sea region have been damaged or cut. Many observers believe it to be closely tied to the Russia-Ukraine war. In November 2024 two major submarine data cables, including C‑Lion1 (which connects Finland and Germany), were discovered damaged or severed, and around the same time, a fibre-optic cable between Lithuania and Sweden (via the island of Gotland) was also cut.
In late December 2024, another incident hit a power cable between Finland and Estonia, and multiple associated telecom cables were reportedly disrupted too. A vessel believed linked to Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” was seized by Finnish authorities in connection with that outage.
Via The Register
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