Security News > 2022 > February > Russia's naval exercise near Ireland unlikely to involve cable-tapping shenanigans
A Russian naval exercise in the Atlantic, near several submarine cables between Britain, France and the US, is more likely to be sabre-rattling than an attempt to sabotage critical communication links.
In its original location the exercise caught the eye of many more people - because it sat right on top of two existing submarine cables and a third due to be commissioned in the next couple of months.
Cables close to the exercise area, and not just directly under it, include Tata's TGN-Atlantic link, Apollo North, Yellow Atlantic Crossing-2 and a yet-to-be-commissioned cable called Amitie.
Chris Parry, a retired Royal Navy admiral turned strategic forecaster, told The Register the exercise is less likely to be about cables and more likely to be Russia flexing its muscles amid its massive military build-up in eastern Ukraine.
Some years ago excitable people on the internet declared that Russia had deployed its notorious underwater intelligence ship Yantar to break into internet cables off the Syrian coast.
While it's not beyond the wit of man to operate on the seabed at depths of thousands of metres, in this instance it seems unlikely that the Russians are tapping critical Atlantic fibre-optic cables.