Russia’s secret hybrid war against the UK is escalating. This is how we know

When sailors on a Russian warship fired warning shots in the air above a British yacht in the English Channel, it was the latest in a series of extraordinary developments deepening tensions between Britain and Russia.

The Russian Defence Ministry said the Admiral Grigorovich’s crew had made several attempts to contact the yacht and had acted in “strict accordance with international shipping regulations”, but Sir Keir Starmer called the incident “reckless”.

Alan and Jane Kelvey, the retired British couple on board Bright Future , told The i Paper they had received no radio contact before the shots were fired.

A day earlier, a Ukrainian man was convicted of setting fire to the Prime Minister’s former home and car on the orders of an anonymous Russian handler. And in the early hours of Sunday morning, Royal Marine Commandos boarded an oil tanker that was part of Russia’s “shadow fleet”.

Shorts

These events, in quick succession, have illustrated what security officials describe as a “full-spectrum threat” from Russia, which is now being exhibited on land and sea, in cyber space, on the streets, in political life and across the Armed Forces.

It is part of the “interlocking web of security challenges” now being tackled by the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service, MI6 chief Blaise Metreweli warned in December.

“We are now operating in a space between peace and war,” she said in her first public speech since taking on the role.

Here are some of the sectors where UK security services warn Russia is active in hybrid war.

Threat on the oceans

Former defence secretary John Healey alluded to the multi-faceted nature of Russian threats last week, when he wrote in his resignation letter that planned investment in the protection of Britain fell “well short of what is required”.

Healey pointed to the Prime Minister’s statement this month that the UK and several Nato countries share the assessment that “there could be an attack by Russia on Nato as soon as 2030”. Healey wrote that the UK was already leading a mission with its allies to deter Russian activity in the Arctic, and had committed to deploying troops to Ukraine after any ceasefire.

But it is the Royal Navy which has most recently been responding to Russian-linked activity. On Sunday, Royal Marine Commandos boarded the oil tanker MV Smyrtos , which the National Crime Agency alleges was being used to evade sanctions as part of Russia’s “shadow fleet”.

Hundreds of sanctioned Russian tankers have sailed through UK waters since the UK Government announced new powers to seize them earlier this year, The i Paper has revealed.

British Armed Forces intercept MV Smyrtos in the Channel (Photo: LPhot Hutchins/MoD/PA)

While experts say the use of such vessels is driven mainly by efforts to continue the international sale of Russian oil, there are concerns they can be used for other functions.

Authorities in Finland have charged officers at the helm of a shadow fleet tanker of damaging undersea electricity and telecom cables by dragging its anchor along the seabed in December 2024.

When the French military seized another sanctioned tanker in October, there were suspicions that it had been the launchpad for drones that forced the closure of airports in Denmark days earlier.

Gonzalo Saiz Erausquin, a research fellow specialising in sanctions evasion at the Royal United Services Institute, said: “There’s always been an association of the shadow fleet not just as a sanctions evasion risk, but also a national security one.”

British forces have also been engaged in the monitoring of Russian military vessels, including an attack submarine that was tracked by British warships and military aircraft in April, and the Yantar spy ship as it sailed near British waters in November.

HMS Somerset shadowing Russian spy ship Yantar in November (Photo: Royal Navy)

The Royal Navy said that vessels tracking Yantar “experienced GPS jamming”, and that the Russian ship’s crew directed lasers at RAF pilots “in a reckless and dangerous act”.

GPS jamming has not been confined to incidents at sea. Thousands of commercial planes, including British Airways, Jet2 and easyJet flights, have experienced suspected Russian “spoofing” of onboard GPS systems in the last year.

In December, The i Paper also revealed that suspected Russian spies had slipped into the UK aboard commercial cargo vessels before visiting areas close to military bases and critical infrastructure.

They entered Britain via docks at Torquay, Middlesbrough and Grangemouth then travelled close to Lulworth firing range in Dorset – where British forces have been preparing Ukrainian soldiers for combat against Russia – as well as secure energy sites which serve as major UK suppliers of ground and aviation fuels.

Sabotage at home

Many acts of suspected Russian sabotage directed at the UK have proven hard to attribute. A series of attacks have been carried out by hired proxies acting at the behest of Russian intelligence services,…