North Atlantic Submarine Activity

Steve Darling Excerpts

Monday 13th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Al Carns]

As is absolutely clear, the maritime interdiction of a Russian-flagged vessel such as the Yantar is very different from one where the vessel either does not have a flag or changes its flag regularly. The criteria must be met to enable those boardings. The MOD is absolutely ready to go, but unfortunately I will not go through the detail here, because it may allow some of those vessels to put in place the mitigations that would reduce our ability to board them.

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

With the Russian navy now escorting shadow fleet vessels down through the English channel, could a mitigation or a blocker for interdicting one of those vessels be a naval vessel with them? Was it an error of judgment by the Government to put them on notice that we were about to start those interdictions?

[Al Carns]

We had already supported a US boarding of a sanctioned vessel and, of course, multiple other allies as well. Russian naval escorts do escort some of these vessels. When they do, that is also putting a considerable strain on the Russian fleet, which is relatively limited when combined with its subsurface capability, and this is having an effect. What I can say is that the MOD is absolutely ready to board any ship that meets the parameters, and will do so if that happens.