The Royal Navy has reported a significant increase in Russian naval activity in the vicinity of British waters. In July, Royal Navy ships and helicopters conducted 21 days of monitoring operations targeting Moscow’s vessels — a 25 per cent rise compared with the same month the previous year.
Russian warships repeatedly transited the Dover Strait and the North Sea. Offshore patrol vessels HMS Tyne, HMS Mersey and HMS Severn, supported by Wildcat helicopters from 815 Naval Air Squadron and Merlin anti-submarine aircraft, were deployed throughout the month to track the frigates Neustrashimy and Admiral Grigorovich. Both vessels have been assigned to escort tankers belonging to Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet”.
According to the Ministry of Defence’s annual report, Royal Navy ships were activated on 116 occasions in the year to March 2026, during which they shadowed 61 Russian warships and 28 merchant vessels operating in UK waters. The figures reflect a 30 per cent increase in Russian naval activity over the preceding two years.
The Ministry noted that the diversion of Russian warships to protect shadow fleet tankers demonstrates that Moscow is “using up valuable operational capacity to constantly guard cargo”.
Russia relies on its ageing shadow fleet to circumvent international sanctions on oil exports and to help finance its war in Ukraine. The latest rise in activity followed the seizure in June of the tanker Smyrtos by Royal Marines — the first occasion on which British forces boarded a vessel from the fleet.