Royal Navy tracks Russian spy ship off Scotland during NATO drill

A Russian intelligence-gathering ship was tracked by Royal Navy helicopters off Scotland after it was found shadowing a NATO military exercise, the Navy said on Monday.

The Royal Navy said the Vishnya-class vessel Viktor Leonov had been observing NATO's Exercise Strike Warrior, a six-nation drill involving eight warships, nineteen aircraft and more than two thousand troops. To keep tabs on the Russian vessel near the Outer Hebrides between 29 September and 8 October, the service moved Merlin helicopters from their Cornwall base to an airfield near Glasgow as part of what it called Operation Iceblast.

Captain James Hall, who commands the helicopters' home station at RNAS Culdrose, said the operation reflected the force's readiness to react quickly when needed.

The Royal Navy also revealed two other recent operations. HMS Dauntless, a destroyer, and HMS Tyne, a patrol vessel, monitored the Russian frigate Neustrashimy as it escorted sanctioned cargo ships through the Channel between 1 and 14 October. Days later, from 11 to 14 October, Tyne worked alongside a Wildcat helicopter to follow the Russian landing ship Aleksandr Shabalin and the freighter MV Energy-2 it was escorting towards the Baltic. Separately, an unarmed RAF Protector drone spent more than ten hours observing the vessels between late September and mid-October.

The Navy said Russia has deployed warships in recent months to protect its oil exports because Britain has sanctioned over 500 vessels tied to Moscow's shadow fleet and seized the tanker Smyrtos during a Royal Marines boarding that lasted six hours in June. Citing a Navy source, the Daily Mail reported that Russian naval activity in British waters had risen by a quarter in the first seven months of this year against the same period in 2025.