Defence secretary reveals details of recent incursions as he warns UK is facing ‘new era of threat’ from hostile countries
A Russian spy ship has entered British waters and shone lasers at military pilots, the defence secretary has said, as he warned the UK was facing a “new era of threat” from hostile countries.
John Healey told reporters on Wednesday the “deeply dangerous” move was being taken “extremely seriously” by the government, adding the UK would continue monitoring the ship and had “military options ready” should the vessel change course.
He said the surveillance ship had crossed in and out of the UK’s exclusive economic zone multiple times in recent weeks, not for the first time this year.
not much of a spy if they’re giving away their position so easily
A Russian spy ship has entered British waters and shone lasers at military pilots,
Then have itnpqy a visit to bikini bottom. Lasers can permanently blind people, if call that a direct military assault and an act of war
It’s still in international waters, unfortunately.
They’ve been going tit-for-tat with flyovers and sail-bys for a while.
For the same reason Russians aren’t in a hurry to shoot down an RAF aircraft, Brits don’t really want to start a shooting war over some Russians with laser pointers.
The ship entered the Brtitish Economic Zone. Which is still international territory.
This is a bit like when someone claims China has entered Taiwanese airspace, while neglecting to report that Taiwan claims airspace over mainland China.
Part of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone actually extends over the Chinese mainland, but Chinese flights are challenged by Taiwan only if they cross the median line – the halfway point between the island and the mainland above the Taiwan Strait.
Click-bait journalists love to print headlines that take advantage of their audience’s naive understanding of international law and gullibility when it comes to claims of foreign countries doing sinister things. In fairness to the Brits, anyone familiar with Russian media gets fed a similar deluge of “NATO is going to attack us at any moment!” scare pieces.
Great for ratcheting tension, driving up military recruitment, and galvenizing the public to hate anyone suspected of foreign origin or sympathies. Not particularly useful when informing the public of safety concerns.
Bomb the ship. Stop taking their shit. The fascist piece of shit only understands strength.
As mentioned already, the ship was found in the British economic zone, not inside British borders. This means it was found in international waters, and bombing it is initiation of war.
What if we just say that they’re smuggling drugs?
Wouldn’t work since Russia has the mean to respond, unlike Venezuela.
Shooting lasers is an act of war.
Lasers, Radio Waves, Weather Balloons, Passenger Aircraft - its all an act of war!
War War War! Start the bombing immediately, Sir Kier! If you don’t, I’m going to vote for Reform and get Nigel Farage to do it!
Someone should tell the Americans.
but… but… they started it with the lasers! >:(
/s but also not /s
How about we let them map all the internet cables, deploy drones over the airports and blow up some infrastructure instead?
Yes, let’s do that!
That’s the losing spirit!
Wait till you find out about Russian satellites and submarines.
unfortunate truth
Two Canadian Air force pilots had to be medically discharged after a Russian ship caused permanent damage to their eyes with a laser a while back.
Fuck the Russians.
why are these ships not immediately impounded and the crew arrested?
Because our political classes are corporate-whore sociopaths, who possess zero leadership value beyond public speaking and rubber stamping the will of a borderless, lawless, criminally-corrupt oligarchy.
They fear a “diplomatic incident” that could escalate, I guess.
But Russia is already escalating like there’s no tomorrow; while I’m still against blowing them up, I do not understand why this ship isn’t now under British control. Unless they shoot first of course. It is tricky, but that trickiness is nothing new anymore and Europe should have come up with a strategy by now.
So just sink them.
Accidents happen.
Next please!Capturing a warship is just as much an act of war.
It’s a “research” vessel
Because warships — and bear with me now because this is quite the jargon — have weapons.
Oopsie gotta eject and where’s that airframe going? Oh my directly at that unsuspecting Russian warship? What shame.
Tempting I’m sure, but they would be sitting ducks in the water after ejecting. Not something the pilots would consider worth risking.
The one thing you don’t do is touch a us boat or a us pilot, if Russia did it would be on no questions asked.
The current president only likes service members who don’t get captured.
To be fair mc Cain is a liar loser with a over hyped story that ignores the major details that make it entirely his fault he was captured.
Still a shitty thing to say but you won’t ever find me standing up for McCain.
Even if they are in their own country? Not sure what specific instance is being referenced but the headline doesn’t say international water.
How are you expecting that to work? An RAF recovery boat every 100m around the coast?
The only people near them are the enemy ship filled with guns.
Presumably the enemy ship wouldn’t be there very long after the airframe full of munitions hit it.
How does a ground level radar even get in the pilots eyes?
Not sowing doubt, just curious what the attack vector is.
Laser is not radar.
High powered lasers don’t even have to hit the pilots in the eyes to do damage as they bounce off any reflective or semi-reflective surfaces in the cabin or windows and still enter the eyes with high enough energy to cause effect. Military lasers can be powerful enough that a very short burst does permanent damage to the retina even from hundreds of metres away. Laser weapons should be in the same category as mustard and sarin gas - a warcrime, but instead… all major powers are developing them.
Exactly the answer I wanted, not sure why people downvoted me over this.
Thnx!
Laser - pilots look down at the ship I guess.
Ty!
If they don’t cut it out with the lasers, I’m getting my slingshot.
Russian spy ship, go fuck yourself!
Reddit moment.
Serious question: why are politicians so weak? We know Russian agents are entering EU thorough Belarus and Hungary, starting fires, shutting down airports and now blowing up railways. Why EU can’t simply shut down the borders and deny entry to anyone with Russian passport? There are supposed to be sanctions in place so the economic activity between EU and Russia/Belarus should be non-existent anyway (except gas/oil but this is not crossing the border in trucks). WTF?
Most politicians only care about funneling as much money to their donors as possible.
They keep getting elected because voters are stupid.
My very lay-person understanding is that generally there is a level of shit each country accepts, e.g. election meddling, hacking or taking of political prisoners as it is part of the “standard affairs” - and will respond to non-forcefully. (Please don’t see me as advocating or trying to downplay these activities, they are abhorrent).
In order to respond with force or war, a lot of prep needs to go in to make sure that the action will be supported by enough allies to both achieve the goal/s and deal with any possible fallout from retaliation.
I believe the EU and its allies sees that a war response to Russian meddling may bring in China more actively into the picture and the US may not come to back them up (unless China decide to re-take Taiwan). OR they see the long-term economic damage to Russia as significant enough to achieve long term regional impact.
Therefore, the EU may not be confident of opening up conflict unless forced to.
IMO Russia’s actions in the EU are a clear test of the EU’s boundaries and willingness to retaliate.
I feel like if China is gonna get involved it’ll be to invade Siberia for the significant amount of oil resource that is available
One theory is putin is desperate to bait a nato attack he can spin as nato entering the ukraine war so he can retreat (or maybe escalate) while saving face.
Im not entirely convinced but its a solid enough theory
Well the Russia report described russian money as not just accepted but ‘welcomed with open arms’ in the UK so really this is just russian ship in the waters of the country they purchased.
blow those fucking drunks out of the water.
I wonder what would happen if people started just using water-dropping aircraft to dump tons of water on them. Maybe escalate to some type of really stanky water. Over and over and over and over again.
So water from the Thames then, yes.
The Thames is the cleanest river in the world that goes through a metropolis. Brown is its natural healthy silty colour.
The Thames is one of the cleanest river in the world that goes through a metropolis.
You dropped the weasel wording there.
But I’m glad they fixed it. Just like the Rhine that was going through my old home town. Nowadays one could even swim in it. No, not really, it’s considered super dangerous, but not because of toxicity.
The last survey put it first place. No weasels required, but otters welcome.
OK, I believe you.
Or the Trump poop meme.
Just run massive planes over the Russian spy ships and dump manure on them.
“Whoopsie doopsie, our evil western planes are so bad that the hatch failed, sowwyy”
Hmm. I know a few pig farmers that has plenty of waste to get rid of. They normally sell it off as fertilizer, but, eh, I’m sure we can persuade them to donate for the cause.
sucks to be whatever schmuck has to clean out the hold, though.
One of those laser weapons that are supposed to take drones down or a laser pointer?
You know I’ve never tried to track a jet with a handheld laser pointer but I imagine it’s not easy so I’m going to guess it’s some sort of fixed device like perhaps a range finder for a deck gun or ciws.
I’m pretty sure it’s just a bunch of guys each awkwardly holding like 40 of those green laser pointers off AliExpress. They all wave them around vaguely in the direction of the aircraft and figure one of them is gonna hit.
Yes, but they’ve put a fancy canopy thing over it to make it look like a seewiz
Yantar (yes it sounds like reptar and I can’t help picturing it as a hokey dinosaur either) just got two new domes on deck. They could be discotechs with laser light shows.
Perhaps mounting a laser and a scope on a stick could improve accuracy. Also never done it and I assume those jets fly rather fast, but if you can estimate the flight path, oncoming planes should be an easy target
Apparently it effectively blinded fighter pilots in a separate incident, so no, not a consumer device.
