DEFENCE SECRETARY John Healey has said that three Russian submarines have carried out a ‘covert’ operation in the Atlantic, north of the UK, lasting longer than a month.
He says he deployed a warship and aircraft in response, and the Russian vessels were ‘monitored 24/7’. He added there is ‘no evidence’ of any damage to UK infrastructure in the Atlantic.
• ‘Our armed forces left them in no doubt that they were being monitored, that their movements were not covert, as President Putin planned, and that their attempted secret operation had been exposed,’ says Healey.
- And in a message to Putin, he adds: ‘We see your activity over our cables and our pipelines, and you should know that any attempt to damage them will not be tolerated and will have serious consequences.’
The defence secretary said the UK has ‘watched, monitored and tracked’ the Russian movements and the country has the ability to ‘step up’ its responses to the incursions.
The UK spent more than a month tracking every mile of them. Recognising the Russian Akula-class nuclear-powered attack submarine as a likely decoy to the two specialist submarines from Russia’s ministry of defence deep sea research programme, Gugi (Main Directorate of Deep-Sea Research).
Healey concluded by saying that as the government acts to defend its interests and allies in the Middle East, it also steps up to meet the ‘increasing threats’ in the high north and to strengthen NATO and defend Ukraine.
Healey said the UK is ‘stepping up’ its defence efforts, making the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War.
He says an extra £100m is being spent on submarine hunting aircraft and the launch of the Atlantic Bastion programme to create a ‘British built hybrid naval force’.
Seabed pipelines provide half of the gas that heats our homes and 99% of international telecoms and data traffic, as well as trillions of pounds of trade each day.
However, all of these efforts are being carried out to try and save backward British capitalism from going under into some form of state bankruptcy where bits of it can be sold off to the highest bidder.
What the British and world working class requires is to go forward to establish a World Socialist Republic where production will be planned to satisfy the requirements of working class and its youth alongside the progressive section of the middle class.
This means planned production using the most modern methods, not to make gigantic profits for a handful of billionaires, but to be able to provide the many with a decent life, with the handful of billionaires given the opportunity to work for their living like everybody else.
However, the fact of the matter is that the bankrupt British capitalists have not got the slightest intention of allowing the millions of the working class to go forward to a socialist society where production will be planned to satisfy people’s needs and the struggle to survive will be dumped into the dustbin of history.
The fact of the matter is that British capitalism is completely backward and out of date, while the most advanced capitalist states are madly competing for what is left, with no holds barred as far as attacks are concerned on the basic rights and the conditions of the working people.
Currently, we are watching the leaders of world capitalism in the United States and the UK and EU seeking to recolonise the planet, and divide and redivide it, in order that they will be able to super exploit the billions of workers and youth nationally and worldwide.
In the most advanced capitalist country, the United States, the most vicious struggle is taking place in order to super exploit the US working class so that the US ruling class can continue to dominate the planet.
However, capitalism is now on the way out! It is in its biggest ever crisis. Now is the time to join the Workers Revolutionary Party and the Young Socialists to build sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International to organise the victory of the World Socialist Revolution!
