UK fighter jets intercepted a Russian maritime patrol aircraft after it “repeatedly approached” a carrier strike group in the Norwegian Sea, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said.
The Russian Bear-F plane passed at low altitude and “unnecessarily close” to the HMS Prince of Wales aircraft carrier and is believed to have dropped 10 sonobuoys into the water on Thursday, the MoD added.
The MoD said Moscow’s activity in the Norwegian Sea was “unsafe and unprofessional”.
It comes weeks after Royal Marines boarded a Russian shadow fleet oil tanker in the English Channel, while the head of the military has warned the risks and threats facing the UK are greater now than at any time since the Cold War.
The UK’s Carrier Strike Group is currently deployed off Iceland under Nato command, with 1,500 British personnel on board.
The group consists of HMS Prince of Wales, Type 45 destroyer HMS Duncan, F-35 jets, Merlin and Wildcat helicopters, and is supported by RFA Tidespring, a replenishment tanker.
The monitoring devices which were believed to have been dropped by the Bear-F plane float on the water and use sonar to detect submarines and other vessels.
British forces attempted to contact the Russian plane on international frequencies, but it did not respond.
Two F-35 jets then flew from the Prince of Wales to escort the Bear-F away from the Carrier Strike Group.
Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis visited British forces on board the flagship HMS Prince of Wales over the weekend and told Channel 4 News: “We should be clear-eyed about the fact that the threat from Russia exists in every domain, under the water, on the water, on the land, in the sky, in space and in cyberspace as well.”
Chief of the Defence Staff Sir Richard Knighton told the BBC in June that Russia had been “probing, challenging, testing our defences”, and was “raising the stakes and risks crossing a line”.
